Fountains Of Wayne

Fountains Of Wayne’s long-awaited new album, Sky Full Of Holes, is the band’s first release on Yep Roc, and their first new release since 2007′s Traffic And Weather. Recorded in New York City, Sky Full Of Holes features 13 new songs by Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger, ranging from high-energy power pop to intimate, acoustic-driven ballads. Songs like “The Summer Place” and “Richie And Ruben” showcase the band’s renowned storytelling abilities and flair for creating memorable characters; elsewhere, they take a more impressionistic approach, as in the shimmering “Someone’s Gonna Break Your Heart” and the elegiac “Cemetery Guns” (a lyric from which provides the album’s title). In signature FOW fashion, the album manages to be simultaneously witty and wistful, imaginative and personal.

Formed in New York in 1996, Fountains Of Wayne took its name from an iconic garden store in nearby Wayne, NJ (which, sadly, closed recently). The band has received steady critical accolades since its inception; “Dean Of American Rock Critics” Robert Christgau has called them “lyric poets” and “true art heroes.” The group’s line-up, which also includes guitarist Jody Porter and drummer Brian Young, has remained unchanged since they toured in support of their 1996 self-titled debut album. FOW were nominated for two Grammys, including a slightly belated Best New Artist nod, in 2003, after scoring a hit with their third album, Welcome Interstate Managers. Sky Full Of Holes is the band’s fifth full-length release, not including 2005′s two-disc B-side compilation Out-Of-State Plates. Produced by Collingwood and Schlesinger, it was mixed by longtime collaborator John Holbrook, who also worked on Welcome Interstate Managers and Traffic And Weather.