Artist:     The Posies

Album:     Amazing Disgrace

Label:     Omnivore Recordings

Release Date:     11.16.18

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Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow were headed for a divorce. The signs were everywhere on 1996’s Amazing Disgrace, a tour de force of glorious, angst-ridden power-pop that followed 1993’s sweetly melodic and sophisticated breakthrough LP Frosting on the Beater and preceded their swan song Success. Some of the song titles alone said it all. Biting lyrics provided even more compelling testimony.

Upbeat and catchy, “Fight It (If You Want)” was also confrontational, while the equally irresistible “Hate Song” had a darkly sardonic edge and “Everybody is a F–king Liar” flew into a stormy tantrum that expressed its distaste for hypocrisy in no uncertain terms. These weren’t just hints of internal strife. The tension was palpable throughout Amazing Disgrace, as the gorgeously bruised melancholy of an otherwise hopeful “Please Return It” – begging for emotional redress – and other songs like it cut their subjects to the quick. Even the inclusion of an exuberant and cheery tribute to Husker Du’s “Grant Hart,” the track’s breakneck speed and sugary, distorted noise so reminiscent of that band’s full-throttle fury, was telling. Considering how everything fell apart for Husker Du, who would know more about band dysfunction and bitter endings than Hart?

A mountain of evidence pointing to The Posies’ irreconcilable differences is found in the reflective, and brutally honest, track-by-track commentary accompanying Omnivore Recordings’ fully loaded 2-CD reissue of The Posies’ fourth record – their last for Geffen Records. All the past trauma and feelings of anger, exhaustion and frustration, as well as a growing sense of detachment, that fueled the most compelling and explosive work of their careers is laid bare. Liner notes that include a passionate essay from Craig Dorfman and reveal much about behind-the-scenes conflict, dissolving marriages and crucial creative decisions dramatically round out a package stuffed to the gills with essential content, with the remastered original record soaking up the spotlight.

Almost every song on Amazing Disgrace stabs you in the heart. Affecting ballads like “Throwaway” and the sweeping “Precious Moments” are simply breathtaking, as is the mournful “World.” And the hook-filled blasts of pop-rock adrenaline coursing through a crunching “Daily Mutilation” and the more buoyant follow-up “Ontario,” with its charming alt.-country accent and dizzying cacophony of guitars, crashing drums and bounding bass, open Amazing Disgrace with a double-barreled bang.

Bereft of clichés, the LP’s forceful immediacy is a never-ending head-on collision. It swerves this way and that with tuneful urgency, leading into scads of bonus tracks. Of the 23 included here, 10 have never been heard before, with absorbing lo-fi demos and alternate versions of Amazing Disgrace material sounding raw and natural, and at times, disarmingly spare and intimate. “Sad to be Aware,” with its coming-of-age innocence, and “Terrorized” are devastatingly beautiful and explored from various angles, while “Limitless Expressions” and “Every Bitter Drop” – flawless pop gems in their own right – are pretty, too.

As reissue campaigns go, it’d be hard to top Omnivore’s 2018 resurrection of The Posies’ catalog, which also boasted lavish re-releases of Dear 23 and Frosting on the Beater. Maybe it’ll be enough to keep Auer and Stringfellow, now reunited and touring as the 1992-94 Posies lineup with drummer Mike Musberger and bassist Dave Fox, together a little while longer.

—Peter Lindblad