The Posies – Every Kind of Light

Now here’s an interesting return/reunion. The Posies, a band which ostensibly ceased to exist back in 1998, yet spent much of the time that made up the years between now and then putting out endless product (the year 2000 itself saw an amazing 4 releases under the Posies moniker!) and seeing Posies main men Jonathon Auer and Kenneth Stringfellow touring together as acoustic troubadours playing Posies favorites to the faithful masses, are at long last back!

Unfortunately Every Kind of Light hardly feels worth the, um, wait; particularly if you take into consideration the relative brilliance of both Auer’s and Stringfellow’s solo work during the years they were, ahem, apart (Auer’s EP’s 6 ½ and Perfect Size along with Stringfellow’s Touched and Soft Commands combine to nearly equal the power and beauty of the first three Posies recordings).

So while the Posies pair found a keen and likely lucrative marketability in being not-the-The Posies-anymore it was certainly only a matter of time’s passing before they meandered into a much ballyhooed reunion of their old band, which in and of itself wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing considering the Posies respectable musical track record. Hell, they’ve never really been apart have they? How difficult could it be to revive The Posies and have it feel like they never really went away? Which they didn’t, right?

Apparently it’s a lot tougher than you’d think. Or at least it sounds that way on Every Kind of Light. Which isn’t exactly accurate I suppose – The Posies don’t struggle sounding like The Posies on Every, they struggle to sound like they actually care about being The Posies anymore. The songs here are entirely sub par, ranging from silly anthemic antics ("I Finally Found a Jungle I Like!" is flat out stupid lyrically and musically is a dead on mimicry of Auer and Strengfellow’s heroes Big Star), to dull soft rock ("Conversations" contains a sweet Posie-esque refrain, but insufferable Carpenter-esque verses), to so-close-to-Posies-quality-that-you-can-almost-taste-it disappointment (the opening "It’s Great To Be Here Again!", a funky bass heavy groove-laden track that from the smarmy title on through smells like filler product).

In fact the entire affair here feels like filler and in the end most of Every Kind of Light isn’t even filler quality; most of the tracks sound unfinished, unformed, and mercilessly insipid ("Second Time Around" with its weak "you / you’re a beauty to behold / you’re the reason I’m still alive" and the awkward lounge lizard’s "Last Crawl" pessing lines like "dreams of you die hardest / dreams of you go farthest / just one last crawl"). All of which is befuddling bearing in mind Auer and Stringfellow’s ample talents. It’s as if the Posies boys, both of whom can still clearly pen a fine pop tune, are holding out on each other – keeping their good songs to themselves for future solo efforts while sabotaging The Posies brand name with this sort of laziness and apparent apathy.

Perhaps, in the long run, Every Kind of Light will be listened to as a misstep – a blemish in the otherwise terrific cannon of one of the all-time great pop bands (which is part of the problem Every faces; if this record had come from an unknown band it would sound much better than it does, but the bar has been set high by The Posies own oeuvre) – but for now it feels like we’ve been cheated…by a band that reunited after never having truly gone away.

Go figure.

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