The same year that Frosting On The Beater<\/i> came out, Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow of The Posies were announced as new members filling out the lineup of the reunited Big Star led by co-founders Alex Chilton and Jody Stephens. And while that reunion\/relaunching was an unexpected development, the choice of Auer and Stringfellow to join Big Star feels like a punchline delivered by Captain Obvious. For anyone who doesn\u2019t know what the Posies sound like\u2014and there are unfortunately plenty of you out there\u2014the best answer I can offer is, \u201clike Big Star never broke up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Formed in 1986 as a vehicle for the songs of singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalists Auer and Stringfellow, The Posies were already something approaching a Big Star tribute band, delivering tight, energetic power-pop, that distinctive subgenre characterized by catchy, muscular guitar riffs, abundant vocal harmonies, and yearning, downbeat lyrics. This particular outing finds The Posies\u2019 brand of power pop at its boldest and most muscular, occasionally channeling the reckless spirit of iconic \u201980s power-poppers The Replacements. <\/p>\n
Frosting On The Beater<\/i> is frequently cited as a high point in the Posies catalogue, and it\u2019s not hard to hear why. There\u2019s a certain keening tone to the lead vocals and close harmonies that immediately brings Alex Chilton and company to mind, but on Frosting<\/i> the guitars are turned up all the way, delivering hooky guitar-rock whose occasional heaviness never eclipses their melodic core. <\/p>\n
The opening trio\u2014\u201cDream All Day\u201d into \u201cSolar Sister\u201d into \u201cFlavor Of The Month\u201d\u2014feels like a clinic in single-writing as taught by Big Star, Teenage Fanclub, XTC, and the rest of the post-Beatles power-pop firmament. \u201cDream\u201d leads with big guitars, the band announcing itself to the world again, before Dave Fox (bass) and Mike Musburger (drums) throw down, creating a dynamic contrast between the pushing-pulling rhythm section, crunchy guitars, and rich, swirling harmonies. <\/p>\n
\u201cSolar Sister\u201d ups the catchiness quotient further yet, burnishing the guitars to a Gin Blossoms shine while Stringfellow and Auer harmonize beautifully over the top. Then \u201cFlavor\u201d offers a sarcastic jab at the label types pushing them to write a single by writing the catchiest one yet, marrying ringing REM-ish guitars to powerful unison vocals while counter-pointing that one-two punch with Badfinger-esque melancholy. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The thrashy chaos factor increasingly creeps in over the course of the next few tunes. First \u201cLove Letter Boxes\u201d interrupts a lean into the band\u2019s melodic side with a shearing, discordant solo section; then \u201cDefinite Door\u201d delivers an almost punky heaviness under the pretty harmonies soaring above. \u201cBurn & Shine\u201d brings this dichotomy to a head with coiled rhythms under distorted guitars, extending the tension through a pair of increasingly unhinged solo sections, the second of which evolves into an over-generous jam that finally cuts off abruptly at 6:51.<\/p>\n
Naturally, \u201cEarlier Than Expected\u201d follows with gentle harmonies, a mid-tempo, rather idealistic tribute to young women leaders who will \u201cface the tempest of tomorrow.\u201d Then \u201c20 Questions\u201d sets a series of philosophical musings to a circular melody given extra dimension by Stringfellow\u2019s Hammond organ accents. Memory takes the forefront as Stringfellow revisits his brutal middle-school years on the churning, anguished \u201cWhen Mute Tongues Can Speak\u201d and Auer recounts the trials and tribulations or touring in a van on \u201cLights Out.\u201d The latter lays in the weeds, airy and quiet until they plug in at 1:45 and blast you out of your seat with heavy distortion; at 3:25 it turns into a raucous, celebratory jam.<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s such a thing as an emphatic dirge, \u201cHow She Lied By Living\u201d is it, an angry tribute to, and argument with, Stefanie Sargent of 7 Year Bitch, a friend and contemporary of Stringfellow\u2019s who died as a result of heroin and alcohol at just 24. The album closes out with the evocative, rhythm-section-less \u201cComing Right Along,\u201d all bold, restless chords behind Auer\u2019s gently menacing vocals. <\/p>\n
(The deluxe edition of this album issued by Omnivore adds more than two dozen demos, unreleased songs, studio goofs, and tracks culled from contemporaneous releases. It\u2019s a treasure trove for the diehard Posies fan, illustrating in voluminous detail how the band draws from sometimes disparate threads of power pop, garage rock, hard rock, and glam, though for the casual listener it may be too much of a good thing.)<\/p>\n
Frosting On The Beater<\/i> was the moment when The Posies ascended from enthusiastic aficionados of power-pop to three-dimensional artists, delivering a set of genuinely original songs that pulled and stretched at their chosen form in a way that ensured their impact would be a lasting one. In the 30 years since, Auer and Stringfellow have enjoyed prolific careers veering between the mother ship of The Posies, solo work, a 15-year run with Big Star, and other collaborations. If you only have room for one Posies album in your collection, though, this is an excellent choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":34529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7275],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-46374","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-posies","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46374"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}