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Critic's Review
Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
The Searchers' debut album was one of the better early-Merseybeat long-players, appearing in the middle of 1963. It was a pleasant enough release, but nowhere near as substantial as the singles the Beatles were generating during the same period -- strangely enough, Meet the Searchers [Japan Bonus Tracks] would yield their biggest U.S. hit, "Love Potion No. 9," but in the total scheme of things, it was just a classy rock 'n' roll effort with some unusual folk influences balancing out the covers of hits by the Drifters and others. The Japanese mini-LP format CD uses 24-bit digital masters close to -- if not identical -- to those on Castle Communications' 2001 release of the expanded CD, but The Japanese version has taken a slightly different direction. Instead of the mono and stereo versions of the album, this disc augments the original 12 songs with Chris Curtis' B-side "It's All Been A Dream," and a French-language release of the same song, plus the group's German renditions of "Money," and "Farmer John." The producers have filled out the rest of the CD with the 11 demo tracks from the 1962 Iron Door Sessions, which are related chronologically as well as stylistically. The music is a similar mix of rock 'n' roll and folk-style material, with a Curtis original thrown in, and one kind of cool Hank Williams cover. It gives the original album more impact and substance, showing those tracks as phases in a group's developing sound.
