PACKS

Indie rockers PACKS combine the part-murmured, part-snarled introspection and freewheeling melodies of leader Madeline Link with off-kilter riffs and a prevailing ’90s slacker-rock vibe. All of these traits were conspicuous on their debut album, 2021’s Take the Cake, as well the follow-up, 2023′s Crispy Crunchy Nothing.
Launched in Toronto, PACKS started out as the solo project of Link, which she picked up between hires as a set dresser for commercials. A handful of early song demos led to tour slots with Squirrel Flower and Odetta Hartman, and lead guitarist Dexter Nash, bass player Noah O'Neil, and drummer Shane Hooper joined the lineup. Link wrote the band’s debut album, Take the Cake, partly in Toronto in 2019 and partly while staying with her parents in suburban Ottawa the following year. It was released jointly by Fire Talk and Royal Mountain Records in May 2021. A more intimate solo EP under the PACKS banner, WOAH, appeared on the same labels in mid-2022. Featuring songs written at her parents’ in Ottawa, back home in Toronto, and during an art residency in Mexico City, PACKS’ second full-length found Link employing humor and candor to process the continuing COVID-19 pandemic as well as the sudden death of a family member. The resulting, “bashed-out” 14-song, 30-minute quartet album, Crispy Crunchy Nothing, arrived on Fire Talk in March 2023. ~ Marcy Donelson