Searching For The Young Soul Rebels

Somebody is onto something, that's for certain. To begin with the name has a touch of magic. Dexy's Midnight Runners suggests something illicit, even apart from the drug reference. It's both strong and open, pointed and evocative. And in the end it's accurate because it registers the desired connection – Dexy's Midnight Runners are a soul band.

Then there was 'Geno'. A surprise no.1, the achievement was all the more gratifying because it was so deserved. It's a great track, positively bristling with hooks, a dance-floor favourite, an attractively affectionate warm and literate tribute, melodic, punchy – and a breath of fresh air besides. Following the first single 'Dance Stance', it pushed the image factor forward a couple of vital notches. It captured the imagination.

The packaging and presentation of Dexy's debut album underlines that this was no accident. Cards are on the table with the title and I can see the young soul rebels joining up because the myth is projected with almost perfect poise. There's a piece of scene-setting indulged in on the inner sleeve, the implication being that this is a mission which is not without its extra legal analogies. The boys are back in town. The band is a surrogate gang. But this has nothing to do with mods or punks or teds or skins or boot-boys or any of the other violence-prone factional elements of the contemporary rock 'n' roll audience. It tells how the boys were rounded up by founder Runners Kevin Rowland and Al Archer, Big Jimmy Paterson, "who had been laying low in the North of Scotland" was the last to join. "He got wind of a big one going off in the Midlands, grabbed his trombone and jumped on the next train. The firm was completed – now for the caper…"

As a piece of image manufacturing, this is superb. Neither is it objectionable nor even seriously questionable – which the street gang fodder of heavy metal certainly is. Again the graphics on both the sleeve and on the 'Intense Emition Review' programme are tasteful and evocative. There is a feeling that behind the 'corporate' style is a guiding sensitivity, intelligence and respect. Dexy's Midnight Runners will not insult the intelligence of their prospective audience. Packaging is inevitable and good packaging is desirable. That front cover shot of 'Searching For The Young Soul Rebels' represents anything but a hard sell. It is a valuable and an excellent photograph taken, I'm told, in Northern Ireland.

The net effect is that I'd wager Dexy's stand a good chance of avoiding the kind of aggressive support which has plagued both 'punk-rock' and ska over the past two years, even if they do create a soul bandwagon. I'm wishing and hoping – the former for obvious reasons and the latter because I think Dexy's have created the right frame of reference and deserve the best results. So do ya like good music, sweet soul music? Hand clappin, foot-stompin, funky but extremely live(ly) music? Do you like the sound of brass propelled on a roller coaster, rolloping rhythm section. Do you like melodies (archaic terminology)? A good voice. A great range. Falsetto bits. Dynamics? Ebb and flow. Musicians who can consistently hit the right notes. Who are not unintentionally flat. Who have learned the art of playing off one another. Who are subtle but inventive though without pretensions to virtuosity.

All of these qualities Dexy's Midnight Runners embody. Their music is raw and euphoric, committed and intensely enjoyable. It is fun music which refuses to be limited by the tag and reaches out for meaning and significance without ever becoming po-faced. It is both well-intentioned and effective.

The sound is brass-dominated and the effect is devastating. Pete Wingfield's 'direction' – not production and you can work that one out for yourself – captures the saxes and Big Jim Paterson's trombone with crystal wide-screen clarity, mixing the authentic Sax sound with the flavour of a stele band. Dexy's brass leaves in the shade its use by ska bands. They also make infinitely superior dance music – subtle and sensuous as well as beauty and bouncy.

There is also an aroma of Art School on the menu. Kevin Rowlands' vocals are reminiscent of Bryan Ferry – another soul fan – David Bowie and David Byrne of Talking Heads – a band who also owe more than has generally been advertised to the great black music of the late '60's.

Now and then, it's true, debts to particular songs seem too obvious. You can sing ‘In the Midnight Hour’ over the intro to 'Burn It Down' (formerly 'Dance Stance'), 'Keep It' is rhythmically based on 'Sitting on the Dock of the Bay' and 'There There My Dear' segues from an insistent chopping rhythm into a seemingly obvious imitation of Otis Redding's 'I Can't Turn You Loose'. But these are small quabbles in relation to a debut album. This is the blueprint – the masterpiece is to come.

And they could produce a masterpiece in the fullest sense. Not all of the songs are as fully realised as 'Geno' but they never short sell in aspiration. There's a density which may unravel with further familiarity but for the moment there's a bunch of fragmented ideas and impressions with which to grapple. And if 'There There My Dear' oversteps the mark on the manifesto ticket, as Declan pointed out when reviewing the single, but it has a compensatory moment of dramatic magic as Rowland talks over, before the band build into the final climax.

Finally they take chances. The spoken intro to 'Burn It Down:' is straight theatre. 'Love Part One' is a poem, ready by Rowland without backing – a voice not fully formed but persuasive and especially unashamed.

Somebody is onto something and I think it's Dexy's Midnight Runners. You'd do well to be onto them too.