The Pack A.D.'s 'It Was Fun While It Lasted' is a melancholic, bittersweet, and heartfelt goodbye
The Pack A.D.'s final album 'It Was Fun While It Lasted', which follows their news that they would be saying goodbye to full cross-country touring, will release on April 17.
The phrase 'it was fun while it lasted' isn't uncommon. It denotes the sad ending to an enchanting experience, one you somehow always knew would not last. And so you spent the entire experience resigned to the knowledge of its inevitable end, even as you try and soak up every moment of fleeting joy.
And that is exactly what this album feels like as you listen to it, with opening track 'Give Up' being the epitome of that experience. Drummer Maya Miller states of this song and The Pack's experience in this industry, "We've been a band for so long, and it's very insular in so many ways, especially when you're a duo. It is this Us vs The World feeling, that highlights Becky [Black] singing 'you may feel leftover but you'll always make my team.'" Miller adds, "This song really lays bare all the frustration and depression that has become part and parcel of doing what we love. We love playing music. We love our fans. We would be lying though, if we didn't say that rock music is a boys club and it is a constant battle to keep our space carved out as women. This song is about deciding what's best for us and taking that control. The end refrain is that pact with no judgement or strings attached: 'Say you give up. I give in'"
The garage-psych duo has spent the last 14 years in the industry blending experimental genre-bending sounds with literary-based and poetic lyrics that revolve around unapologetic feminist pathos, ruminations on depression and anxiety, and environmentalism. For the band, their music was just as much a space to create as it was their way of navigating an ugly and unkind world. So it is in no way surprising that their choice to have this be their last album revolves around these very ideas.
Nonetheless, the band states of their decision, "Just so you know, this doesn't mean we're breaking up. We're not that dramatic."
The title of the album is more than a commentary on their own journey alone, however. Much like they did in their previous release 'Dollhouse', Pack A.D. are making a comment on climate change with this album. They state, "The album title, is straight forward on one hand, as, it WAS fun while it lasted and also the album title and cover is a comment on climate change. We stand at the Ocean's edge, with an oil tanker in the distance and our faces covered in modern tragedy/comedy masks made of non recyclable plastic bags and meh expressions. Our time on the Earth too, WAS fun while it lasted."
The album's dark and brooding tone is thus laced with a feeling of despair that only something like the end of the world can evoke, which is depressingly apt for the times we find ourselves in today. At times the album has bursts of energy which, against the backdrop of it's more weary tracks seems like a soul trying to fight back, just one last time.
As the album trudges to its close, the track 'Check Engine Light' kicks in with some gorgeous Western guitar. At just over a minute, this instrumental track seems like a melancholic goodbye. But just as you take your hat off to wave The Pack goodbye, they give you one last punch to the gut to remember them by with 'The Gap'. You can even picture them slowly ride off into the sunset as this track winds down the final Pack album.
This is their last hurrah, their final goodbye, and that makes it a bittersweet escape. And it really was fun while it lasted.
