Armed with a folio of hearty Stax/Volt-style tunes and enough pretensions to poetic spirituality to sink a shipful of Solomon Burkes, singer-writer Kevin Rowland took Dexys Midnight Runners on a desperate hunt for a mythic tribe of bold new British youth on 1980's Searching for the Young Soul Rebels. That same anthemic breast-beating and soapbox arrogance also scuttle the band's second album, Too-Rye-Ay, an otherwise ambitious fusion of folky Irish jigs and Sixties Memphis soul blasts.

This time, it's not Rowland's lack of sincerity that rings hollow; rather, it's the self-important swagger of his lyrics and imperial ranting in his voice. "First let's hear somebody sing me a record/That cries pure and true/No not those guitars, they're too noisy and crude," he bawls in the brassy "Let's Make This Precious." As a singer, Rowland still mistakes knee-bending histrionics for real conviction. The canny integration of wheezing barroom accordion and the sunny sawing of Celtic fiddles with honky horns suggests there may indeed be a connection between traditional Irish music and American R&B. That connection was first explored by Van Morrison, whose "Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)" is covered here. And the recent British hit "Come On Eileen," a spirited, unpretentious romp in the hay with a shy lass, brings the LP to an exuberant pop climax with Rowland's pleading chorus and the jaunty pluck of a banjo. But the rude smugness and narcissistic flaunting of songs like "The Celtic Soul Brothers" ("I've seen what's on show and now there's no more to know...So step aside, now your time's up") show Rowland is still too busy studying himself in the mirror to find the young soul rebels right under his nose. (RS 389)

DAVID FRICKE