There’s a relentlessly brooding power and bruised melodicism emanating from the Pack A.D.’s sixth full-length, Positive Thinking (Cadence), that belies the album’s cheery self-help title. Drummer Maya Miller admits that she and guitarist Becky Black intended a certain irony in the LP’s nomenclature. “It’s facetiously hopeful, which pretty much sums up our band.” says Miller. The Pack A.D. has always been foundationally blues based, with a detour into poppier territory on Do Not Engage. Over the past few albums, though, the band actively shifted toward psych rock, a major thread in the fabric of Positive Thinking. Miller will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our feature on the band.
Miller: Where do you even begin the praise? Kate McKinnon is hands down, a comic force, a beacon of hilarity in our grim landscape. Whether she’s Mrs. Rafferty relating her atypical abduction story while slouch sitting in high-waisted jeans, legs spread so casually to the limit that her just sitting there, owns the room and everyone near it. Or her Hilary Clinton, which was at turns hilarious, trenchant and heartfelt. Her performance as Hilary singing “Hallelujah” at the piano as SNL‘s post-Election Day cold open this past November was an unprecedented and bold choice for a comedy show that frankly had me in tears. Or, how about Debette Goldry, the octogenarian star of stage and screen who flapped her toots for the Krauts because she did what she had to do for her country. And finally I can’t think of another woman who has given us all such unabashed desexualized crotch comedy, as witnessed in almost every character she portrays. I’m serious, watch for it; it’s a thing. In conclusion, Kate for president.
