Fountains Of Wayne
Out-Of-State Plates (Virgin America)
by Marc Hirsh

originally published in Amplifier, September-October 2005

Out-Of-State Plates is exactly as consistent as Fountains Of Wayne’s other releases, and whether that’s a virtue or a flaw is up to you. Collecting an astonishing number of B-sides (dating in some cases from before their debut) and tacking on two new songs, the two CDs nearly double the band’s three-album output. The timeline’s jumbled up, but it’s a testament to the Fountains’ long-term focus that 2003’s spry “Elevator Up,” which is better than half of Welcome Interstate Managers, sounds fine next to 1997’s “Comedienne.” Like all odds-and-sods collections, there are lulls, and the band’s cleverness comes perilously close to cutesiness the way it does on their proper albums (though their cover of “…Baby One More Time” is, interestingly, invested with more sincerity than many of their own songs). But if Out-Of-State Plates does nothing else, it shows that Fountains Of Wayne hit the ground running and haven’t flagged.

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