Just 17 months after the release of their third album, we kill computers, The Pack a.d. dropped their fourth album, Unpersons.

Of the 13 tracks, four are well suited to livening up any bloody-knuckled bar fight montage: “Lights,” “Rid of Me,” and “Haunt You.” Also “8,” which perfectly showcases The Pack a.d.’s new sound direction. More garage rock than blues this time around, their grungy presentation of melodically solid songs has been rubbed with sandpaper, deliberately made grittier. “Oi don’t give a fuck,”  begins “8,” growled in a cockney accent in a deliberate nod to the British punk that’s being channeled by the Vancouver garage duo. 

But make no mistake, that grit you hear isn’t rust. Recorded on tape, produced and mixed by none other than Jim Diamond (of The White Stripes fame), Unpersons represents a confident and conscious commitment to a particular sound.

Only three songs are downtempo, and two of those stand out as strong and unskippable tracks. On Unpersons, The Pack a.d. is strongest when they’re not taking no for an answer. The rest of the album’s tracks fall somewhere in between ballad and bar fight, but closer to the bottle-smashing, jaw-breaking side of things than the meditative post-breakup Marlboro.

The sound of revenge rather than reconciliation, with frank lyrics full of liquor, knives, scars, and dark powers, Unpersons adeptly supplies uneasy listening for uneasy times.