Fastball Balances Old, New

Fastball is a sweet rarity in this age of one-hit sluggers: a group that has crafted an entire album of pretty good rock songs. On Monday at the Viper Room, the Austin, Texas, band offered a set that highlighted tunes from its sophomore record, “All the Pain Money Can Buy,” deftly blending the sultry, raucous sounds of garage, Tex-Mex and punk with swelling, melodic pop. The band also peppered the set with older, more combustible tunes from its 1996 debut, “Make Your Mama Proud.”

In sharp contrast to those songs’ upsetter feel, the band was clearly straining to move a packed crowd of relatively subdued music industry types. The tense feeling in the air was punctured when singer-guitarist Miles Zuniga broke a string early on. “I didn’t need that string anyway,” he said, chuckled and then dug into the band’s punkier numbers with more intensity.

Alternating the older and spikier songs with ones from “All the Pain,” Fastball showed off lots of radio potential, from the grounded angst of “Fire Escape” to the regret-filled “Out of My Head.” But the highlight was “The Way,” a song that has been climbing up the modern rock charts. A starry-eyed, Elvis Costello-meets-Alejandro Escovedo number, it dreams up a romantic ending for a real-life elderly couple who had disappeared.