PACKS

This Event is General Admission - Standing Room Only

In March 2020, as the world dealt with collective uncertainty, Madeline Link was dealing with unthinkable tragedy on a much more personal level. Her aunt, Lori Tate, was killed in Seattle, a victim of a hit-and-run. Madeline was spending the early weeks of lockdown with her parents and sister in Ottawa, stuck grieving remotely in Canada’s capital city with no distractions and nowhere to go.

While the specter of death looms over Crispy Crunchy Nothing and its brisk, folk-rock vignettes of loneliness, yearning and confusion, so too does Madeline’s sense of humour. It’s bone-dry, tucked within her drawling vocals, and buried beneath guitars that alternately sneer and twang. But it’s there, the album’s beating heart — a sense of purpose and unflinching resolve evident even in its title, taken from Madeline’s description of biting into a moldy apple.

Crispy Crunchy Nothing puts to rest any notion Madeline had about finding the end. Burnout, dead-end jobs, bike theft, stress dreams, heartbreak — PACKS move forward through them all one at a time, equal parts Alex G’s whimsy and Helvetia’s thunderous dynamics. Sticking together songs written in Toronto, Ottawa and Mexico City, Crispy Crunchy Nothing revisits the fuzzy alt-rock debut Take the Cake and adds some folksy twang for an album that explores the tension between independence and isolation, between living life to the fullest and feeling like you’re wasting your time.