Engineers include: Doug Easley, Davis McCain, Fluss.

Recording information: Chicago, IL; Cybertechnics, Dayton, OH; Dreamland, Woodstock, NY; Easley Recording, Memphis, TN; Pie, Long Island, NY; Totally Wi.

Unknown Contributor Role: Tom Skerritt.

Initially, Kim Deal planned the Amps to be a solo project as she waited for her sister and fellow Breeder Kelley Deal to finish recovering from heroin addiction. Soon, the Amps flowered into a full-fledged band, recording material intended for both Kim's solo project and the third Breeders album. Recruiting drummer Jim MacPherson and two local Dayton musicians, Deal recorded Pacer in the summer of 1995, releasing it in the fall. Appropriately, the album is raw, punky, and amateurish -- it's lo-fi garage punk. Not only does Deal sound recharged by recording with a new band in such a rushed atmosphere, she contributes her most immediate and bracing songs since Pod, the first Breeders album. Pacer somewhat recalls the Pixies, but only in the sense that both bands rely on amateurish enthusiasm to rock, and both bands have an off-kilter sense of song structure. In that sense, the Amps also take a great deal from Guided by Voices, who the Breeders covered on their 1994 Head to Toe EP. But the key to Pacer is its primitive energy. From the brutally pounding "Empty Glasses" and the charmingly sleazy "Tipp City" to the singsong pop of "Pacer" and the fractured melodic rock of "Hoverin" and "Breaking the Split Screen Barrier," Pacer is exciting, gut-level rock & roll. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Regardless of whether The Amps are Kim Deal's next rock band or just a temporary reprieve from her old one (The Breeders), PACER, the group's debut, is a confident, forceful album, loaded with lo-fi nuggets and none of the sloppy baggage usually attributed to side projects. The cast is different--only Breeders drummer Jim MacPherson's Keith Moon-like explosions are familiar--but Deal's boisterous musical personality is present throughout.

The settings are, at once, diverse and one-dimensional--gruff, punky rip-roarers ("Tipp City"), intoxocatingly simple garage-pop ("Pacer"), anthemic power-chord rock ("Dedicated"). And while the reinterpretation of an old Breeders b-side ("Hoverin") may be as close as Deal's lyrics have ever hinted at morality--"don't do it," she warns, "if you wanna stick around"--far more typical is her drunken query on the blustery "Empty Glasses": "Where's the waitress? Where's my other shoe?" Simple admissions like these make PACER the realistic soundtrack of '90s alterna-style. Drink it in.