Two Vancouver ladies, guitarist/singer Becky Black and drummer Maya Miller, continue the White Stripes-y duo movement with We Kill Computers, the band’s third release in four years. Consisting of 13 unpolished tracks, the simple blues/punk songs never break the four minute mark and are on a whole minimally produced, with only a smattering of guitar double tracking and vocal harmonies.
Rather decent songwriting aside, The Pack A.D. is made or broken by Black’s vocals. It may be a personal preference, as singing styles usually are, and it suits the material from time to time, but it seems that Black’s often doing more with her voice than the relatively unadorned music demands (sometimes right out of her range, such as “Cobra Matte”). The songs that work best have a more uniform simplicity, such as “Math, the stars” or “K Stomp” which has a simple soulful vocal.
But if nothing else, this music is rightfully theirs. I wouldn’t want to take anything away from the soul sisters, as there’s certainly an attitude and identity coming out of We Kill Computers. However, it’s doesn’t completely translate here. The Pack A.D. seem more suited to the hard touring lifestyle they lead to convert fans, and not so much the underproduced album in question.
In A Word: Unbalanced
