Listening to All The Pain Money Can Buy, I can't help but picture Fastball as one of those garage bands which populate crappy '80s teenage sex comedies. You know the routine: the band usually appears three or four times throughout the movie, once practicing, once hanging out with the hero/ heroine, and once near the end of the movie when the band ends up playing at some club or party where a record exec hears them, and they sign a big contract and live happily ever after. And the band never seems to deserve the contract, because the songs they play are horrid cheese- pop ditties probably written by the screenwriter or (even worse) the film's producer.

So what happened to Fastball after the end of their imaginary movie? Well, their major label debut was 1996's Make Your Mama Proud, a sprightly punk- pop effort that failed to garner any attention at all, having missed the Green Day gravy train by a good two years. All The Pain Money Can Buy, their new album, is a stereotypical "mature effort"-- no more punkish flavor, just upbeat, earnest, workmanlike power- pop with serious Cheap Trick and Big Star fetishes. It's certainly catchy stuff, as evidenced by the success of the first single "The Way," a light bit of tango- flavored pop which subconsciously rips off both Cake and Elvis Costello and sounds good doing it. But as guilty pleasures go, All The Pain Money Can Buy makes me feel just a little too guilty.

Don't get me wrong, All The Pain Money Can Buy has some great hooks, but as a power- pop album it's just one step above mediocre. Fastball knows how to put a song together, but you get the unsettling feeling that you've heard that exact same chord progression somewhere before, and lyrically, they're dumb as rocks. You've got your requisite songs about nostalgia ("Better Than It Was," "Good Old Days"), "the business" ("Warm Fuzzy Feeling," "Which Way To The Top?"), vindictive breakups ("Slow Drag"), and of course, heroin ("Charlie, the Methadone Man"). Nowhere on the album is there any unique lyric insight or personality. Occasionally, the tunes are strong enough to distract from the lyrics, such as on the soothing/ aching "Which Way To The Top?" and the Wallflower retread of "Out Of My Head." But sometimes the musical cheese factor is just too great; songs like "Warm Fuzzy Feeling" and "Good Old Days" are just so fucking perky that I imagine even Hanson might win in a barfight.

I'd say that Fastball needs a few more failed relationships and maybe a kicked drug habit or two to give their music a little more of a bitter edge. All The Pain Money Can Buy is the sonic equivalent of Pixy Sticks; in moderation, it's a nice buzz, but too much gives you a nasty sugar hangover.

-Nick Mirov