Posies Planted Outside the Pop Current

Cheap Trick appears on the Posies’ new album, “Amazing Disgrace.” Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer are official members of Alex Chilton’s regrouped Big Star. Despite their mentors’ approval, the hurdles blocking the Posies from big success were clear during the Seattle group’s set Thursday at the Roxy.

The band seems always a step outside of the pop current. When its city’s grunge craze crested in 1990, the Posies turned toward sweetness on their album “Dear 23”--sounding like Big Star and Badfinger in cahoots with the Ramones.

Now, with ears having turned toward the power-pop of Green Day and the New Wave-ish No Doubt, the Posies’ old grabby hooks were somewhat overshadowed Thursday by the new album’s dirtier crunch.

Then there’s this problem with group dynamics. Brand-new drummer Brian Young and bassist Joe Bass were banished upstage all night, more like studio help than actual members. Thankfully, Auer--acting like a gothic Dean Martin--played guitar with awesome, effortless ease and Stringfellow--a garage-punk Jerry Lewis--was mesmerizing to watch.

In the end, Stringfellow and his shoeless straight man Auer, crowned with a fuchsia mop and dressed in black to his toenails, revealed why, despite being perpetually, detrimentally ahead of the pack, their high-rush music remains a Seattle mainstay: They still juggle sugary pop and hard rock with aplomb.