Searching For The Young Soul Rebels (20th Anniversary Enhanced Remaster) [ECD] - Dexy's Midnight Runners > Reviews > Still Searching!

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Groundbreaking
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	Flawless
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Outstanding
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Scorching soul that packs a punch
Disadvantages:	None

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

We've had twenty odd years of dancing at weddings to Come On Eileen, so it's easy for the general public to reduce Kevin Rowland's ever-changing group to the role of perennial one-hit wonders!

But that certainly was not the case!

When Dexy's Midnight Runners hit the top spot with Geno it was like a breath of fresh air. Punchy horns and impassioned vocals were not the norm at a time when punk was king and Two-Tone was the prince.

But Geno wasn't their first single. Dance Stance, renamed Burn It Down on this album, was a celebration of Irishness long before Too Rye Aye. Name-checking a host of writers, philosophers and poets to the sound of a fat horn riff, it should have been their first Number One.

Tell Me When My Light Turns Green is another slice of horn-led brilliance, whilst The Teams That Meet In Caffs is an intrumental worthy of the great days of Stax.

Kevin's vocals are passionate and very distinctive on I'm Just Looking, lulling us into a false sense of security before slapping us around the face with the utterly brilliant Geno.

Chuck Jackson's Northern Soul classic, Seven Days Too Long, gets the full Dexy's treatment, and is the only cover version on the album.

I Couln't Help If I Tried, Keep It and Love Part One remind us that Kevin Rowland's song writing was of the highest level, and Thankfully Not Living In Yorkshire never fails to leave me breathless. How on Earth does he manage to sing so fast?

There There My Dear is, arguably, the best track on the album. Written and sung in the form of a letter, it fairly crackles with anger.

Searching For The Young Soul Rebels deserves to be rediscovered. In my opinion, it's a far better album than it's more famous successor inasmuch as it is less contrived and less image driven.

It's the true sound of Midlands soul!