Argentine rock duo Pacifica blend strength and fearlessness on their sophomore album ‘In Your Face,’ channeling everything they’ve lived since their debut while still keeping close the technical sharpness that listeners expect.

Stream: ‘In Your Face!’ – Pacifica

Sometimes, chance – a missed train, a wrong address, a simple misunderstanding – becomes a catalyst for transformation.

What feels like bad luck turns into something unforgettable: A bond, a memory, a turning point. A living testament to this phenomenon? Pacifica.

I enter a Zoom room with the Argentine rock duo, comprised of Inés Adam and Martina Nintzel (and a third party slightly out of frame: Nintzel’s cat, Billy), who have dialed in from their hometown of Buenos Aires. We hadn’t initially planned to meet virtually; days earlier, the duo was slated to open for Balu Brigada at New York City’s Webster Hall as part of their U.S. tour. Deformed by visa mishaps and delays, their travel plans unraveled quickly, leaving them silo’d in Buenos Aires as nearly the entire American leg of their tour evaporated in their rearview.

Adam mentions at the top of our call that only hours earlier (over a week into Pacifica’s U.S. tour), she and Nintzel received word that their visas had finally been approved for U.S. travel. “We were so bummed,” Adam says, still half-laughing at the absurdity of it. It’s the kind of mishap that would derail most bands – but if Pacifica is anything, it’s resilient.

That resilience has been woven into the fabric of the duo’s story from the band’s inception. Whether by chance or algorithmic destiny, the two met in 2021 in the comments section of one of Adam’s TikToks over a shared love for The Strokes. A fellow superfan had suggested the two meet – Adam had recently begun posting covers of The Strokes’ music, while Nintzel was the founder of “the second or third biggest fan account” for the band. A few exchanged messages later, and the two were posting themselves playing covers of The Strokes on the balcony of their Buenos Aires apartment.

Soon after, they impulsively flew to New York to see the band live; not long after landing in the States did they receive notice that the show was cancelled. Naturally. Determined to make the most of it, the duo slated themselves to play a few sets throughout the city during their short time left in the States. One of their performances caught the attention of TAG Music: The LA-based joint venture between Cobra Starship album Gabe Saporta and Atlantic Records. Their return flight was cancelled, they both contracted COVID-19, but yet somehow, the chaos felt like confirmation. “That’s what my dad said,” Adam recalls. “Everything happened just because of a canceled show.”

Spiraling out of that first New York tailspin, Pacifica have since built a world of their own in four short years. They’ve released one EP and two full-length albums – Freak Scene (2023) and their latest, In Your Face! (2025) – while cultivating a devoted following who hang onto every riff, lyric, tone, and TikTok of theirs.

They describe their debut album, Freak Scene, as “an album made by music fans, for music fans”: Something of a scrapbook of the sounds that raised them.

“It’s a love letter to the music we grew up listening to,” Adam says, “and we made a lot of winks either lyrically or melodically.” Their listeners, many of them musicians themselves, pick up on every detail. “They always ask about the tones, or how we get our music to sound the way it does.” Included on their premier album, song “Digital Clock” contains nods to The Beatles, The Strokes, and Radiohead, while other tracks, like “Change Your Mind,” pull from their Argentinian rock influences (ie; Charlie Garcia), adding texture to their transcontinental sound.

Released on October 31st, 2025, Pacifica’s sophomore album, In Your Face!, is a bolder, glossier, and punchier answer to their previous discography. It is “eclectic, high-energy, jumpy,” as Adam describes it, while refusing to sacrifice any of the mastery and technical prowess of Freak Scene. Their influences are embedded within its tapestry: Phoenix, Daft Punk, and, as always, The Strokes. “The way [The Strokes] presented themselves on stage was very attractive,” Adam remembers of her first introduction to the band as a teenager. “The cool factor was a big thing.” She jokes that trying to emulate that coolness has been her mission “since I was 14.”

If eliciting coolness is Pacifica’s intent, they undoubtedly rank at the top of their class. While the title of In Your Face! signals an indisputable attitude with its daring visual cue, the duo colors the album with humor – the record winks just as much as it snarls. “I think it’s very honest, and a little silly. It’s not too serious,” notes Adam.

When asked about their initial vision for In Your Face!, the two reveal their original attempt to separate their sound far from Freak Scene.

Too far, in fact. “The more we started making [In Your Face!], the more we tried to distance ourselves from the sound of Freak Scene,” Nintzel explains. “But then we were like, wait – Freak Scene was a good album… there’s a lot to learn from it. Instead of ignoring it, we should pay more attention to it.”

Their initial vision for In Your Face! leaned electronic and pop-forward, until they realized they’d wandered from what felt true. “We were taking it a little too far,” Adam says. “We backed it up a bit – it’s still poppier and funkier, but not a full 180.” One of the clearest examples of their new direction is song “Indie Boyz”: a sweaty, late-night pop-rock haze that grew out of their “party phase” while recording in LA. The irony is that neither of them wanted to record it. “We thought we’d devote the least amount of time to it,” Nintzel laughs. “Then on our last day [in LA] we played it, and were like – wait. I love this song.” They spent the next few hours dancing around the studio, celebrating the track they almost ignored.

The character behind “Indie Boyz,” they admit, was inspired by real characters they’d met during their venture to LA. Nintzel mentions one specific musician they crossed paths with: “He wasn’t wearing corduroys,” she flags, “but it’s kind of about him.” Just as “Indie Boyz” draws from their lived experiences, the rest of the songs on In Your Face! are similarly grounded in real life. “Our first album was just us having fun and trying to write songs,” Nintzel says. “Then those songs took us places, and stuff happened to us. [Those experiences are] where In Your Face! comes from.”

I ask Pacifica to imagine their former Freak Scene-era selves in conversation with the Pacifica who is now in the wake of the newly-released In Your Face!. Adam imagines a tender exchange: “Maybe In Your Face! would say, ‘Why are you hiding? Why aren’t you talking about yourselves?’ But we’d also say, ‘I love you.’”

That intimacy carries across the record, especially in its themes of independence and freedom. The period between their two albums was marked by breakups, growing pains, and the shock of entering the music industry as young women. “We were very young when we started this,” Adam says. “We were thrown into the music world, working with people – usually older men. There’s a learning curve to that. Very quickly we realized our experience as women in music is not always going to be the best.”

One of the most personal tracks on the album, “Fixer Upper,” came straight from heartbreak. The day before leaving for LA to write the album – “literally hours before” – Adam experienced a break-up. She barely slept before heading to the airport. “It was very traumatic. You don’t want your support system to go away right before you leave home for three months.” A writing session with their LA-based collaborator Sadie helped shape the song. In a twist almost too poetic, both Adam’s and Nintzel’s ex share the same name. “We had a love song about both of them,” Adam laughs. “And now we have a breakup song about both of them.”

“For Us,” meanwhile, is a softer anthem – something they see as a celebration of the life they’ve built together. When asked about who the intended audience of the anthem may be, Adam reveals with a laugh: “I was going to say: For us.” Adam describes it as “a positive song about life,” an embrace of their shared purpose. She compares it to Freak Scene track “With or Without You,” which they’ve dedicated to each other – not because they’d ever want to be without each other, but because they find themselves constantly reminded of their enthusiastic willingness to share their lives with each other. “We’re so lucky,” Nintzel exclaims with a smile.

While the duo has previously labelled  “With or Without You” the “favorite child” of their debut album, I ask if that has changed since the release of In Your Face!; both hesitate. It changes daily. Today, the consensus is “Wasted A Drunk,” a song whose title they’ve gleefully defined on TikTok. So what’s the opposite of wasting a drunk? Nintzel doesn’t hesitate to answer: “Making out with your crush and not regretting it; dancing, having a good time with your friends, and drinking water before you sleep.” Adam further refines the formula: take ibuprofen, wake up fresh, eat a good breakfast, listen to good music – “because having fun with your friends and making out with your crush would not happen if bad music was playing.” If she has her way, perhaps “Indie Boyz” would provide the soundtrack to a night spent utilizing a drunk the way she intended.

Before we end our call, I ask whether they’ve ever found the TikTok user who originally suggested they meet – the commenter who, unknowingly, sparked their formation as a band.

Nintzel shakes her head. The account has either been deleted or the comment removed. “It would be fun to find out who it is,” she says, “but even if somebody claims it’s them, you never know.” What they do know is the identity of another accidental architect of Pacifica: A friend named Patrick who once gave them tickets to see The Strokes. He came to their New York show recently, arms full of Strokes T-shirts, closing a loop neither of them could’ve predicted.

As we’re wrapping up, Nintzel briefly disappears from the frame and reappears holding her cat, Billy – incidentally, an extremely cute one – before telling me that she and Adam are moving to Spain in December. Around that time, they’ll be jetting off to Japan for the next leg of the In Your Face! tour.

Fitting. Pacifica, after all, has always been propelled forward by a mix of chaos, momentum, humor, and raw talent – always moving, always evolving, and always slightly, delightfully, in your face.

— —

:: stream/purchase In Your Face! here ::

:: connect with Pacifica here ::

— —

— — — —

Connect to Pacifica on
Facebook, 𝕏, TikTok, Instagram

Discover new music on Atwood Magazine

 © Jaxon Whittington

In Your Face!

an album by Pacifica