Album: It Was Fun While It Lasted
Release Date: April 17, 2020
Genre: Garage rock
It Was Fun While It Lasted will be the last record from The Pack AD for a while, if not forever. The duo from Vancouver has no doubt left their footprint in the Canadian rock scene with their impossibly massive garage rock sound and this final release from the pair of Maya Miller and Becky Black is no exception. Wielding only drums and a single distorted guitar, The Pack AD have yet again delivered on a record that is wild and huge. The album soars to psychedelic heights and stomps over fuzzy riffs; controlled-chaos is definitely the name of the game when it comes to these two.
The record features a good balance of straight ahead, grinding garage rock songs and looser, more spacious psychedelic-leaning tracks that push and pull the momentum of the album in a very interesting and dynamic way. Tracks like “Reprogram”, “It’s Okay”, “Gas Station”, and “No Good” hear the band leaning in hard on their instruments, thrashing and wailing away at a mid-tempo stomp that you can’t seem to turn the volume up loud enough on. There is nothing mindless here by any means, however. The skill and musicianship demonstrated on both the wild and colourful guitar riffs from Black and the crushing, edge-of-your-seat drumming from Miller is what sets The Pack AD apart from the “standard” sound of noise rock. The biggest standout track as far as pure intensity is concerned is “Gas Station”, which clocks in at 1:20 and serves as a more than effective wakeup call on the record. The duo can also be heard loosening up and exploring more spacious and progressive ideas, such as what can be heard on “Kids”, “Sound Warden”, “Change Kills”, and “Shake”. “Kids” immediately brings to mind Vancouver post-punk legends Nomeansno when one hears Becky Black’s trance-like belting over top of Maya Miller’s stripped-down, tom-heavy drumming. This helps show off the band’s skill and maturity in showing that not only can they create an unexpectedly large sound for just a duo, but that they have the ability to explore different ideas within that sound that can often leave other bands appearing like one-trick ponies, so to speak.
The record closes off on “The Gap”, a humble but beautiful send-off for a great album and a great band. The pair strip themselves down to the acoustics and play themselves out before we hear them set down their instruments and walk out on the recording, likely for the last time as a band. It Was Fun While It Lasted is a prime example of going out in absolutely the right way.
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