style.ritzgirl.comWest-coast duo The Pack a.d. revisited Montreal this past summer with a powerful June 10 performance at Le Divan Orange.
Guitarist and main vocalist Becky Black is disarmingly slight in person, given that the androgynous power of her voice captured on disc creates the impression of a giant. But she proved the authenticity of her sound in the flesh, and then some, with equal parts lung capacity and forcefully unpretentious riff-wrangling.
Maya Miller set the tempo between tracks and during them. To say her drumming was on-point is to downplay the precision with which she manipulated her kit. As MC, she kept the tempo upbeat, electing to skip many of the slower songs on the set list to keep things lively.
The only drag was the stubbornly standstill audience. Only near the finale, when the air was seasoned with the smell of whiskey from spilled shots, did The Pack get some of the hoots and moving feet they deserved. A pity, since they’d played some of their best danceable tracks—”1880″ and “Cobra Matte”—at the very beginning of their set.
The set list was a solid mix of songs from their second and third albums, Funeral Mixtape and we kill computers, with a generous helping of preview tracks from their forthcoming thirteen-track album, Unpersons. Two new tracks, “Ride” and “8,” rounded out the evening and gave a hint toward The Pack a.d.’s new musical direction—more frenetic, more aggressive, more lightning for the extremities and a big invitation to thrash.
This brand of grungy blues-rock can easily unravel without the acoustics and multiple takes of a recording studio, but The Pack a.d. delivered a polished performance.
