PACKS Announces 2nd Album of 2023 "Melt The Honey", Listen to "Honey" Now!
In March, PACKS released Crispy Crunchy Nothing. The band's sophomore LP built on the momentum that had been sparked around the Madeline Link-led project with the release of their 2021 debut Take The Cake, earning comparisons to artists like Alex G, Vivian Girls, Pavement and Best Coast from publications like FADER, Stereogum, Consequence, Alt Press, Uproxx, FLOOD, Paste and BrooklynVegan. The album was an exciting step forward for the band and one that pushed their sound in some promising new directions.
That promise has been realized far sooner than even the most optimistic PACKS fan could have hoped, as today they are announcing their third LP Melt The Honey (due out January 19th on Fire Talk), and sharing the album's not-quite-title-track "Honey," with its accompanying video.
Remarkably, the band's second LP in 12 months was recorded just before the release of their previous album. Over the course of 11 days last March, Link and the rest of her band (Dexter Nash [guitar], Noah O’Neil [bass] and Shane Hooper [drums]) gathered in Mexico City. PACKS practiced new songs in a rented studio space, with each member bringing their aesthetic sensibility to the table. From there, they took a bus to Xalapa where they spent the remainder of their time abroad working at a house known as Casa pulpo, an architectural feat removed from the bustle of city life, owned and operated by Wendy Moira, the visionary behind Teatro Lucido, a prominent theater and music venue in Mexico City. “The house has no straight lines, it puts you in a creative mindset,” Link says. “Plus, it was really warm, we were there for three weeks enjoying the weather and self-recording with minimal equipment."
Melt the Honey emulates the environment in which it was made; it’s a warm, unvarnished album, one that invites the listener into PACKS’s familial way of working, which was made with the same group of musicians who have joined her since her Take the Cake debut in 2021 taking part once again.
Part of the vibrancy of the recording also comes from an underlying emotional shift in Link’s life: falling in love. The album’s title draws from the lead single “Honey,” written in a Chilean beach town where Link briefly lived ensconced in these feelings, sharing a home with her romantic partner and allowing herself to experience life in an easier way, through the lens of having someone by her side.
"I wrote this song while I was living in a tiny beach town in Chile, nestled between two hills," Link explains. "They don’t have maple syrup down there so we’d have honey instead. To keep the honey from burning you have to melt it a special way! As this developed into a habit, I think I was struck by how cute it was."
Ahead of the new album's release PACKS will be spending much of the fall on tour in the US with Geese, before heading to Europe with Slow Pulp in November and December. Full details can be found below.
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