My Amazon Reviews: Searchers "Love's Melodies"

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.

   

My Amazon Reviews: The Searchers "The Searchers (1979)"

Searchers Return  
4 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 1979, Sire Records (home to Talking Heads, Ramones, etc) signed them for a new album.

The resulting "The Searchers" was a total surprise. Instead of reviving old hits or trying to chamge their sound, the band carefully selected modern songs from current writers and claimed them as their own. The biggest shocker was "Hearts In Her Eyes," written by Will Birch and John Wicks for English new wavers The Records' second album. It is the album's best song by a huge margin and should have been a comeback hit. The guitar and harmonies were tailor made for The Searchers' brand of music and performance, enough so that this is one of those rare instances where the cover outshines the original.

On other songs, such as Tom Petty's "Lost In Your Eyes" or Mickey Jupp's "Switchbaord Susan" (more famously covered by Nick Lowe), the same formula applies. Overall, this is one of those 60's comeback albums that doesn't fall flat or feel like cheap nostalgia. They followed this album with the equally well done "Love's Melodies" a year later. It's taken them a while to finally see their CD release, and it is well worth getting them if you're an 80's lover.