The Posies - 'Every Kind Of Light' (Ryko) Released 27/06/05

Opening with ‘It’s Great To Be Hear Again!’, you’d be forgiven for thinking that you’ve accidentally stumbled on the new James Bond theme tune, instead of the new Posies album. With it’s stabbing strings and 70’s lounge funk seductiveness the song seems almost like muzak with it’s approach, but when those honey dabbed vocals glide in taking the songs emotional crux into redemptive hyper-drive there is no doubting who are behind such cock-eyed genius.

After such a dodge ball of a beginning, by the time ‘Conversations’ strides in, you’re in familiar territory. The Posies were always an odd proposition when lumped together with the more macho bands of the Grunge genre, due to their location and the timing they somehow got lumbered with a genre that bared little relation to their own unique sound. Sure the guitars were loud, but the vocals weren’t a cartoon-like self-pitying deep throated croon, instead glittering harmonies in the key of The Hollies and The Beatles, adding a much needed dimension to the often self-deprecating/self-destructive tales of  life and it’s many complicated obstacles. The band never gained the appreciation or respect they deserved. With this unwanted tag of grunge hanging around their necks, journalists wouldn’t give them a chance and due to their heart on sleeve approach and harmonic maturity they didn’t appeal to the mono-browed mall shopping mass who made the genre so wealthy. After some much needed time apart, and the water-testing of a live acoustic album (’In Case You Didn’t Feel Like…’), EP (’Nice Cheekbones and a Phd’),  an numerous come-back shows, they have finally found their mojo again and created a masterpiece, which in comparison to their previous work, is strong praise indeed.

The album is certainly varied, taking influence from ever nuance of their own career, the soft almost pastoral harmonies of their earlier work (‘Failure/Dear 23’ era) and the Who like power pop crunch of their latter day work (‘Frosting On The Beater/Amazing Disgrace’) and expanding upon it with the influences Jon and Ken have picked up with their own solo work. Though each track has it’s heart in a different place, it’s still got the feeling of a complete album, driving itself and constantly varying it’s attempts to get under your skin, and the sense of relief is wonderful. ‘Second Time Around’ has the touching sentiment and emotional fury that the Foo Fighters once had, throwing itself around with it’s glorious hooks and striking guitar lines. Whereas ‘I Finally Found A Jungle I Like’ is like the power pop greats (The Raspberries, Sloan, The Shazam etc.) all jamming at once, puncturing the Hammond swirls and Keith Moon-like drum showmanship with harmonies that leap out at you and shake you by the collar until you shake into a million carbon copies of yourself, creating your own riotous audience to be slain by…

Production wise it doesn’t quite have the depth of ‘Frosting On The Beater’ or ‘Amazing Disgrace’, sounding a little thin and heavy on the reverb at times (no doubt the influence of Ken’s startling if slightly nostalgic solo work) but although the band are a totally different band to what they were in the 90’s, lacking the same sense of danger or sugar-coated candy kissed white noise, but those melodies and harmonies are still the sort that will make you stop in your tracks, close your eyes, and lose yourself amongst the notes, lines and heart break. So a stunning return to form, we all knew they could do it, and boy have they done it!