Linchpin is the latest young pop-punk band from the South East to really kick up a fuss in the music industry. Despite all being only sixteen years old, this four-piece have already found themselves fans in characters such as Dave Grohl and Good Charlotte‘s Madden twins. So when their debut mini-album ‘Small Town Theory’ hit my desk I was eager to see what all the hype was about. The first thing that struck me while listening to the disc is just how well produced it is. With producing legends Paul Stanborough and Richard Flack twiddling the knobs (see Queens of the Stone Age), they’ve taken six cracking tracks of pop-punk gold and transformed them into a tight sounding, slick piece of audio.
CD opener ‘High Life’ sounds like a nicely blended mix of Silverchair, Yellowcard and Ash with more than a dash of Sugarcult thrown in for good measure. Despite some pretty cliché lyrics and a certain amount of predictability, there is no denying just how goddamn catchy this is. Follow up track ‘Can’t Explain’ continues in the same vein although is slightly more adventurous with a well placed key change and breakdown towards the end of the song. ‘All I want’ and ‘Artists and Raptors’ dance dangerously into the territory of bands such as Simple Plan and Good Charlotte. Where this may be a criticism, it’s a cracking piece of pop with some excellent vocal harmonies that you just cannot deny a singalong. ‘Hypochondriac’ takes a slightly different direction, and the verses sound very much like they could have been penned by the summer’s hottest radio band, The Automatic. At under two minutes it’s by far the shortest track on here, but it’s hopefully a taster of the band stretching their boundaries into something a bit less conventional.
The title track is clearly the best number on ‘Small Town Theory’. The whole song just works, with a bouncy guitar rhythm and a warm vocal line. They’ve even stretched themselves and thrown in a little guitar solo too. Despite this CD being somewhat formulaic, there’s no doubt that this teenage four-piece have something special going on for them. At an age where most of their heroes were learning how to play their first chords, they’ve already produced a cracking set of poppy, infectious tunes, all excellently produced. Bonus music video for ‘Can’t Explain’ is a lovely addition to the package as well. While I can’t help feeling that there’s been a lot of money thrown at Linchpin to get them to where they are so quickly, if they can write some more summer singalongs like these, I don’t think it really matters too much.
Andrew