The posies – Blood/Candy - Review by Adrian Brown 

Blood/Candy is the first album in five years from Seattle band The Posies and according to co-founder Ken Stringfellow their intention was to re-visit the band’s roots and create a classic guitar pop album but found themselves, in his own words, “being far more adventurous, more playful and more heartfelt.”

Listening to this album I’m inclined to agree.  Yes, there are plenty of guitar pop tracks laden with hooky melodies and great harmonies but there is much, much more to this album than straight forward guitar pop.  It’s a distinctively Posies album but with layers of other music influences running through it from 90s Brit pop to 70s prog rock to naughties indie and more. 

It’s also my favourite kind of album: a grower, a slow burner, a record that seeps slowly under your skin.  On first listen you just know you’ve only scratched the surface of a great piece of work and the more you listen the more layers you’ll uncover and the more it will draw you in. 

Musically it’s clever.  Nothing is over played or over produced in fact it’s so smooth and seamless in its construction you can easily miss the clever stuff going on behind the commercial façade of the pop melodies. 

One stand out track that reminds you of the eclectic history of previous Posies albums is ‘Accidental Architecture’ evoking memories of mid 70s Genesis and even early Floyd but don’t let this lead you to think that’s what this album is all about.  Far from it in fact. 

I’ve listened to this album way more than necessary to write a review which is comment enough to highly recommend it.