Fastball singer/guitarist Miles Zuniga has found one particular thread to reviews for his band's new CD, "Little White Lies," disturbing and perhaps even disappointing.

"I've read a lot of reviews that said it's what you would expect or something like that," Zuniga said of the reviews, which have been overwhelmingly positive.

Zuniga thought Fastball's music had evolved considerably on "Little White Lies," and he's surprised that's not apparent to more people.

"That makes me want to go out and make a bossa nova record just to make sure that the next record is completely different," he said in a recent phone interview. "I like changing. I like stuff to be completely different. But to me, ("Little White Lies") feels different, so I guess that's all that matters — and that people like it.

"Songs like 'Soul Radio,' to me, we would just never be able to pull off before. It's got counter-point harmony in it and stuff. But maybe non-musicians don't really notice that kind of thing."

Don't get the idea that Zuniga is frustrated with Fastball, which headlines Saturday's free Riverfront Music Festival on the Newburyport waterfront, presented by WXRV-92.5 The River radio and the Greater Newburyport Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

Actually, quite the opposite is true. Zuniga appreciates the band, and especially the musical relationship he has with the group's other frontman, singer/guitarist/songwriter Tony Scalzo, more than ever.

When it comes to the band now, Zuniga doesn't worry about fame, image, popularity or any of those aspects of the music business, just the music.

"I just want to play the best show I can," he said. "I've got a song to sing for you, and I want to sing it as good as I can on any given night. That's really it. It's very simple, whereas before, maybe I did want to be famous or did want to do that. To me, all that stuff is completely extemporaneous. ... The point is the song itself. The point is the records. The point is the live experience between me and you."

Fastball, which formed in 1994 in Austin, Texas, exploded into the music mainstream with its second CD, 1998's "All The Pain Money Can Buy." The album sold more than one million copies on the strength of the hit singles "The Way" and "Out Of My Head" and was nominated for two Grammy Awards.

But after just one more CD, "Harsh Light of the Day," Fastball fell apart. Zuniga moved to Nashville to try his hand at a songwriting career. Scalzo worked on a solo project, and Fastball's third member, drummer Joey Shuffield, worked on his band, Young Heart Attack.

"I think when we started, we were a band, but it just wasn't completely cohesive," Zuniga said. "When the success came, there wasn't a unified front. ... The main problems were just communication. That was our main problem, and being willing to listen to each other. We weren't good at it before."

Realizing that Fastball had not run its course creatively, Zuniga and Scalzo decided to try working together again in 2003. There was no doubt they connected musically, Zuniga said.

"When we sing together, people love it," he said. "I don't know why it is, but I've seen it happen in rooms where no one knows who we are. I'll play a song, and he'll play a song, but then we sing together and the whole room stops."

A first step was an acoustic tour as a duo in 2004. Then they started the band, and before they knew it, they had a hit song. Their comeback album, "Keep Your Wig On," was released later that year.

Unfortunately, that album flopped commercially. And the band members went their separate ways once again until the end of 2006, when they decided to reactivate Fastball. In the process, they took apart their business operation (including firing management and splitting with their label, Rykodisc Records) and put in place an entirely new team. The new CD, "Little White Lies" was self-released.

Zuniga and Scalzo, who now write most Fastball songs together, also got their creative juices in order, and in "Little White Lies," have made what many feel is the band's best CD.

Songs such as "The Malcontent (The Modern World)," "Little White Lies" and "We'll Always Have Paris" feature the familiar ingredients — a timeless pop-rock sound with hum-along hooks packed into every turn.

Zuniga said there's also musical moments on "Little White Lies" that break new ground for Fastball, such as the harmonic structure of "Always/Never" or the piano breakdown in "She's Got The Rain" that's in a different tempo for the band. Such new twists in the material have a big benefit in the band's live shows, which lean largely on material from "Little White Lies" and "Keep Your Wig On," Zuniga said.

"I tend to believe we've become more conscious of building in more dynamic things into the songs," he said. "As a musician, it gives you more to work with when you go out to play.

"Sometimes you'll play a song a hundred times, and if it doesn't have those (technical aspects) in it, you might find it hard to deliver the song yet again with the same (passion). But if the music is technically kind of challenging, then it becomes really fun, like well OK, let's see if we can do it the best we've ever done or whatever."