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 The Pack A.D. breaks the mold of a male dominated genre and create their own unique brand of music. They are a duo, not your average duo but female duo. They hail from Vancouver BC. The Pack A.D. is Becky Black on vocals and guitar and Maya Miller on drums. Their sound and personas are basically female versions of Jack White (White Stripes) and Dan Auerbach (Black Keys). They produce a cauldron of blues, punk and minimalist garage rock. Once the cauldron stirs and the recipes finished, a gutsy, unrepentant sound flourishes. The listener could probably even hear the mistakes on the album but it doesn’t matter. The album a bit rough and sloppy a times but it’s laden with honesty and realness. The only problem is that sometimes the realness sounds a bit forced.
Altogether Tintype makes for a classic album filled with the sounds of yesteryear. The vocals seem to be a recall of Janis Joplin’s soul and spirit mixed with a sultry smooth sound brought out sparingly. The guitar and drums form a passionate intense relationship which features muddy fuzz riden guitars mixed with freewheeling loose drums. The lyrics bring back echoes of their former experiences on your not so typical girls nights out mixed with some bits about hard living, heartbreak, and drinking. The album features seventeen songs and begins with “Gold Rush.” This number captures the duo’s energetic spirit and sounds like it was recorded while you were sitting at a table at your favorite watering hole in a back alley of Chicago. Eight tracks pass until “Stray,” and some of these eight tracks feature the forced sound mentioned previously. “Stray” brings the listener back to the band’s strengths. It features a muddy guitar sound meshed together with raw vocals that showcase the raw power brewing inside of Black and Miller. The gears shift a little with “Bang.” Incendiary guitar sounds collide with raw vocals that create a break from the vicious feel of the rest of album. The end result is a well-crafted ballad with shape shifting guitar tones and vocals that seem to traverse a valley of sound. The last two points of interest lie in “Hardtack Saloon # 2 and 3.” The tunes sound and feel as if listening to a band playing live at an 1850s saloon in the American West.
Overall the Pack A.D. possesses amazing raw potential. Their styles and sounds would perfectly adapt to a live album and should appeal to a wide range of listeners from young to old. Even though people will hear some of the slop that sits on Tintype’s riffs, the album still makes a great straight up double shot of Rock and Roll.
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