Searching for The Time Machine 3 Out of 5 Stars
Original Searchers John MacNally and John Pender were the core of the original incarnation of The Searchers, playing on such classic songs as "Needles and Pins" and "Sweets for My Sweet." Frank Allan had been in the band from the late sixties on. Even if the hits had long stop coming, The Searchers soldiered on. Then, it seems, time caught up with them again. Their brand of jangle pop had been flaunted by everyone from Tom Petty to REM, and in 1980, Sire Records (home to Talking Heads, Ramones, etc) signed them for a new album. That 1980 album, simply titled "The Searchers," was an amazingly deft, surprisingly strong modern jangle pop album, did modest sales and garnered a fair amount of critical acclaim.
Naturally, there was a follow-up a year later. "Love's Melodies" is just as good, despite sporting an awful album cover. However, the album followed the same formula as the prior; tart covers of songs by a crop of current writers, a pair of originals, and the tingle of twelve string Richenbachers giving The Searchers their classic sound in an up-to-date setting. This disc does miss the killer punch of The Records' Will Birch's "Hearts In Her Eyes," but The Searchers went back to him for a pair of gems. Both "Everything But a Heartbeat" and "Radio Romance" came from Birch's pen and highlight "Love's Melodies." The Motors get a solid via a cover of "Love's Melody," as does Moon Martin on "Love's Made a Fool Of You."
The Searchers also took a step back to their heyday by taking on John Fogerty's "Almost Saturday Night" and nodded to a band that had obviously taken some influence by recording Big Star's "September Gurls" about a decade before The Bangles. The seriousness of the album's selection should have made more music buffs sit up and take notice, as most of these could have slipped on any current modern rock station. Even a couple decades later, "Love's Melodies" stirring harmonies and chiming guitars hold up excellently. It may have taken a long time for these two discs to make it to CD, but they're still very much worth having.
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