The Pack a.d. and Brother O’Brother split 7″ on limited edition tri-color vinyl (50 copies), 2020, Romanus Records. Two of the best garage-rock duos out there, back-to-back on vibrant custom vinyl, accompanied by their own hand-crafted action figures (super-limited to 15 sets) including Pack a.d. members Maya Miller (drums) and Becky Black (guitar, vocals) and Brother O’Brother’s Warner Swopes (drums, I’m also pretty positive he painted these himself) and Chris Banta (guitar, vocals).

Side A has The Pack a.d.’s blistering track “Shake” which is stomping, psychedelically lo-fi garage rock and SO GOOD. Side B has two songs from Brother O’Brother: “Cyborg,” a garage-punk face-melting stomper delivered with maximum force and fury, and “This Is Fine,” another thundering all-out rocker whose lyrics, I’m fairly certain, belie the title – everything is not actually fine in 2020. Though this package of awesomeness I received over the weekend is one of the few delights this year; I cannot wait for musicians to start being able to tour again. We had tickets to see Pack a.d. this spring (cancelled, of course) and usually get to see Brother O’Brother at least a few times throughout the year. Not so much in 2020.