It's appropriate that "The Way," the first song on this Austin, Texas, trio's second album, opens with someone flipping through the stations on an AM radio; the playful, vaguely Latin-flavored tune sounds as though you could have already heard it on your parents' car radio. That sense of familiarity lingers through the rest of All the Pain Money Can Buy. Fastball's two songwriters, guitarist Miles Zuniga and bassist Tony Scalzo, are adept at taking well-worn chord progressions, riffs and melodies, and fashioning convincing, even exciting, new power pop. Tracks like "Better Than It Was" and "Nowhere Road" offer a gritty, trans-Atlantic mix of styles, principally recalling the Who and the Replacements. Excellent singing and cleareyed lyrics (largely about the ups and downs of band life – again, not that original, but so what?) help make Pain a distinct pleasure. (RS 786)

MAC RANDALL