REVIEW: Fastball, All The Pain Money Can Buy (Hollywood)
- Bill Holmes
No doubt you've heard the leadoff single, "The Way", which has exploded out of the box like a rocket even though the album hadn't been released yet. Good news - there's more where that came from. Fastball's second album is almost culture shock for fans of their first. Not that it's better - although it is - but more that it's so...well.... different! Where Make Your Mama Proud owed a debt to The Replacements; this second platter is much more along the lines of Wilco's Being There. Refined but not restrained, Fastball takes it up a level, albeit at an angle.
And that single! If the sneaky intro of "The Way" doesn't hook you, the irresistible chorus will, especially with the incredible barrelhouse piano sound that drives it along. Hot on its heels, "Fire Escape" borrows from The Dylan via Byrds playbook (the first verse is a nod to "All I Really Want To Do"), and "Better Than It Was" uses ringing twelve string to marry early Tom Petty with latter period Band. Vocalists Tony Scalzo and Miles Zuniga carry the harmonies well, just enough torch in their twang to please y'alternatives and rockers alike. (And speaking of The Band, "Out Of My Head" will make any of their fans do a double take).
Impressively, Fastball has channeled their exuberance without sacrificing the content. Not as frantic as their debut, Pain is solid when it's more soulful - "Slow Drag" and "Which Way To The Top" are standouts. And if it needs to kick a little ass, no problem - "Sooner Or Later" is a killer, and should be a smash if anyone is awake at the House Of Programmers. The boys even swing with horns on "Good Old Days", which features a Chicago/Asbury Jukes horn chorus that carries the melody until the guitar solo shreds it just for the hell of it. By the time the record closes with the haunting "Sweetwater Texas", you've touched all bases and scored. As has the band.
