Cynics that most of us are, if we’re honest, have probably already written off Churchvill, PA-based The Starting Line. They’re yet another import from the swelling Drive-Thru roster who, for every Finch, have given us two or three New Found Glory-alikes to clog up our already crap-overloaded chart. So why give these guys the benefit of your doubt, you ask?

Well for starters, these youths are the not the chart-bothering monoliths they would no doubt like to be. This, their first single, shows off the kind of choon that Blink 182 would sell their mothers for, while also betraying a genuine optimistic sentiment that’s pretty much unheard of from their whining peers. Yet without the “pity me” lyrics or knob references, most pre-teens will doubtless find little of interest here.

‘The Best Of Me’ is a summer record in the classic sense. It’s about young love and living out the dreams you’ve had since you were 13. When bleach-blonde singer Kenny Vasoli belts out the words, _“We got older, but we’re still young/We never grew out of this feeling that we won’t give up”, it’s enough to make this cynic want to go out and rescue injured animals for charity. Or something…