Old clothes do not make a tortured artist" claim the liner notes on Searching for the Young Soul Rebels. Then why do Dexy's Midnight Runners, a punky British R&B band with Stax-Volt pretensions, go to such melodramatic extremes to wear their Sixties-style soul on so tattered an aesthetic sleeve? These guys are simply too busy hitting you with their rhythm shtick about a lost tribe of English youth to produce a sound as punchy as their rhetoric.

Ironically, the stirring, potentially anthemic quality of Dexy's original songs almost cancels out both the amateur-hour artiness of the liner notes (which include quotes from the Old Testament and Memoirs of a Disillusioned Socialist) and the thematic production gimmicks (e.g., "Love Part One," a pseudo-Beat poem set to solo sax, or the ceremonial turning off of a radio that opens the album). In "Geno," the group pays rousing tribute to their roots in general and Sixties U.K. soul man Geno Washington in particular. They effectively juxtapose the mighty blast of Memphis-style brass with a list of Irish playwrights in "Burn It Down" (a rerecorded, retitled version of their debut single, "Dance Stance") and later call "the new soul regime" to order in the LP's frantic climax, "There, There, My Dear."

But too often the Runners are undone by their uneven horn section and vocalist Kevin Rowland's annoying hysterics. In torchy ballads like "I'm Just Looking," "I Couldn't Help It if I Tried" and the bullish "Keep It," Rowland's oppressively mannered singing – a whiny tenor punctuated with trills, cracked notes and a hiccuping falsetto–sounds more silly than soulful.

When they tighten up the brass and Rowland tones down his affectations (as they do in their frenetic cover version of "Seven Days Too Long"), Dexy's Midnight Runners – who suffered major personnel changes after this album – show themselves capable of becoming the Sex Pistols of soul, bringing their young soul rebellion to a boil with the invigorating sting of modern urban blues and the white-hot energy of postpunk rock & roll. It's really too bad that on most of Searching for the Young Soul Rebels, the B in Dexy's R&B stands for bullshit. (RS 344)

DAVID FRICKE