At least at last, a four-CD slimline box full of extras and studio outtakes from Seattle’s Posies, started out as a great notion when super-fan Kelly Minnis found himself trading bootlegs of the Bellingham band’s “Lost Sessions”. A chance meeting with founder member Jon Auer, who alongside Ken Stringfellow really is/are the Posies, persuaded all concerned to add meat to the bone of a career which encompassed eight albums, including the loveable Dear 23 (1990) and the immortal Frosting On The Beater (1993), itself a somewhat poetic method of describing a solo activity which is always best conducted undercover.
At Least At Last encompasses college-bound acoustic duo beginnings and rushes through the power pop years to end in a wild rocking implosion at the aptly named Bottom Of The Hill club, San Francisco. Along the way it unearths many nuggets and contains all the stylistic blueprints that turned Auer and Stringfellow into contenders. Having begun as huge Cheap Trick and Big Star fans, they nabbed the job of supporting one and backing the other?wish fulfilment on a grand scale.
Among 66 sharp cuts, fanatics of the band will adore a version of “Beck’s Bolero”, a typically truthful take on Big Star’s “What’s Going Ahn”, and snazzy demonstrations of relationship-twister “Suddenly Mary” and Frosting candidate “Dream All Day”. Add in tributes to Blondie, the Trick and Devo and these Posies are heard in full bloom.