Fountains of Wayne had me at "Radiation Vibe" - strange to think it's been over a decade since that pleasant introduction. The follow up to their eponymous debut, Utopia Parkway, is arguably their strongest (garnering a top 5 spot on my best of '99 list), but it wasn't until they nailed the "perfect 3 minute pop single" with "Stacey's Mom" that they solidified their immortality and the accompanying pension.

However, with the "Stacey's Mom" cherried Welcome Interstate Managers the chief chink in FOW's armor became not so much glaring as somewhat suspect. The weakness to which I refer is their unwillingness and/or inability to break out of the tried and true. Before Traffic and Weather I was still willing to shrug it off as an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" non-issue, but I'm afraid we've now reached the threshold where FOW's almost paint-by-number approach to their craft must result in penalization.

I do need to admit that I didn't pick up the bands bench-emptying b-side compendium Out of State Plates, which may contain some sort of exciting departure from the norm, but if it's a money bet I'd wager against it. None of this is intended as a specific complaint about Traffic and Weather any more than it could be retro-bitching about Utopia Parkway. Nothing is missing here, you've got your up-tempo, tongue-in-cheek toe tapping sing-alongs, as well as the mid tempo melancholy laments about time's passage/love's impermanence/American dream disillusionment/etc./etc. And of course the two compulsory heart-rending ballads.

There is no significant lapse in quality, Adam and Chris can still turn the kind of clever phrases that add that happy dimension to their Cars/meets Beach Boys Alt-Pop, but in terms of songcraft these 14 songs that we've essentially already heard. Also on the negative side of the ledger both for the band and Virgin records is that there is no "Stacey's Mom" caliber radio single to be found. In the final analysis, at the end of the day, when it boils down to worse coming to shove all this really amounts to is me rating the album as a 3 and a half instead of a 4 – Do you feel that? That's the earth not shaking.