*** Lincoln

LINCOLN

(Slash/London)

Lincoln main man Christopher Temple comes straight out of the Hoboken/NYC postpunk tradition of smart and geeky small-town guys moving to a city where they'll never really fit in only to become part of a scene that has wisely embraced such oddball talents. Chris Stamey (of the dB's), Johns Flansburgh and Linnell (of They Might Be Giants), and Freedy Johnston are some of the better-known role models he can look to for guidance. And though Temple has his own interests (old cars and, well, old cars), he seems to have done quite of bit of looking, not to mention listening.

The dozen sharply hooked and mildly quirky tunes on Lincoln split the difference between Johnston's urbane roots pop (particularly the acoustic-guitar-based working-man ode "To Build a House") and the brainy revenge-of-the-nerds charm of They Might Be Giants, which comes to the fore on the bouncy car tune "Sucker" (as in "I hit the pedal like a trucker/Flip the finger/So long sucker") and "Basketball," a street-scene snapshot set to a new-wavish beat. Guys like Temple often end up being too smugly clever for their own good after a couple of albums, which is why there's almost always room for a bright new upstart to pick up where the last one left off.

-- Matt Ashare