Melt the Honey

In March of 2023, the same month they released their alienated sophomore album, Crispy Crunchy Nothing, Torontos PACKS spent three weeks in Mexico rehearsing and recording their next album. The bands leader, Madeline Link, had done an artist residency there in 2020, and amidst the warm weather and avant architecture of Casa Pulpo in Xalapa, they tracked a set of songs written with Link having newly found love and moved in with her partner. The resulting Melt the Honey -- their third straight under-30-minute blast of snarled slacker ditties -- is still fractured and generally discombobulated, but the subject matter is a bit lighter and the vibe more copacetic than previous releases. Among the 11-song track list are songs about neglecting to back up files ("89 Days"), the cat at their practice space ("Missy"), high fructose corn syrup ("HFCS"), and multiple definitions of tripping ("Trippin"). Told from the perspective of the cat, the uptempo and mostly monosyllabic "Missy" features a night-prowling, spoken Spanish-language verse by Lupita Rico as well as English lyrics like "I will yawn when you notice me/Look at my nails, then the ceiling" by Link. Another energetic entry, "HFCS" is a dark grunge-pop anthem that will find listeners humming along to the vacuous phrase after the album is over. By contrast, the drawn-out melody in the somnambulant "Trippin," with its mix of acoustic rhythm and meandering electric guitars, creeps up on listeners like a secondhand smoke but is just as likely to stick. More scene-setting than hooky, the harmonics-strewn rock instrumental "AmyW" is one of multiple entries here to evoke Abbey Road with its guitar tones and textures. If it unfolds mostly like a set of made-up-on-the-fly, unserious, everyday-occurrence tunes, its one by somebody who is exceptionally good at it, with a sharp ear for hooks, quirky phrasing tendencies, and visceral, spontaneous-sounding accompaniment, ultimately making Melt the Honey play out something like a guilty pleasure. ~ Marcy Donelson