PACKS share reflection on grief "EC" from new LP Crispy Crunchy Nothing out March 31st via Fire Talk & Royal Mountain.
In a little under two weeks, PACKS will be releasing their sophomore LP Crispy Crunchy Nothing on Fire Talk Records. The follow up to their acclaimed 202.1 debut Take The Cake, which earned accolades from international media outlets like Gorilla vs Bear and Bandcamp, who called the LP "the sound of classic indie rock as delivered by a promising new voice," the album has seen the release of two singles "Brown Eyes" and "4th of July", earning best of the week nods from outlets like Uproxx, Consequence and Alt Press who called it "a delight".
PACKS' new LP sharpens the laid back appeal of the band's debut, displaying a newfound flair in its arrangement and production that heightens the subtle strangeness of leader Madeline Link's songwriting. A collection of bright, imaginative vignettes of loneliness, yearning and confusion, under-pinned by Link’s distinct sense of humour, and her writing has found a new emotional register, which is exemplified by the album's final single "EC", which is out today.
The writing of the album was tied up in Link processing the death of her aunt, who was killed in a hit and run incident in Seattle near the start of the pandemic. While "EC" was not written directly about that loss, it addresses the way that grief can strike in unexpected ways and with surprising weight, and has an emotional rawness that's only been hinted at in Link's songwriting to this prior to this album.
"The unexpected death of a coworker I had never met struck me like a brick wall,"
Link explains.
"I had been in charge of packing up all of his electronic hardware and shipping it to him just months before. As I found myself preparing shipping labels for his mother to place on the boxes to send back, a lasting sadness set in."
Crispy Crunchy Nothing will be released on Fire Talk on March 31st.
It is available for pre-order here.