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: I have had two iterations in my life as an opener of portals. The first time I was introduced to this game, I was a tourist. I collected the cards based mainly on the artwork as opposed to their functionality. Let me tell you, it takes more than an amazing picture of a Dark Ritual to build a winning deck. Years later, while on tour and with days off, I decided to pick it up again and in doing so trapped my bandmate Becky into the delicious mania that is MTG. This time around, I try a little harder to make decks that stand a chance at defeating other decks. I still can’t resist a good theme but sometimes it works out nicely as my Rat Deck and my Army Of Allah deck will attest. Oddly, my crazy religious villager deck filled with bureaucrats, abbots and Clergy of the Holy Nimbus just never seems to make a dent. Oh well, onwards and upwards, for I have many more decks where those came from. And, I still like to pepper my decks with zero cost Ornithopters. Some things never change.
