PACKS took root on Madeline Link’s downtime in-between work as a set dresser for commercials. That makes sense listening to the band’s debut album Take the Cake. Link’s songwriting takes an approach highly-focused on minutiae in one moment yet drawling in the utterly mundane the next. Together, there’s a craft to it. Something clearly artful and intentional despite Link’s brazenly sluggish delivery. The 11 tracks of Take the Cake live in that realm, the slacker rock world that seems to show off how little effort this requires.

By the time of the album, the Toronto-based band had developed into a quartet with drummer Shane Hooper, bassist Noah O’Neil bass, and lead guitarist Dexter Nash. The foursome delivers a full sound but hardly ever does an individual member push for attention. The coolness of the band comes from the overall style: a crisped, crackling sound that hearkens toward what might be called classic indie rock. Check the excellently crunchy “Two Hands” for one of the better examples.

These tracks don’t slam or bathe in distortion but lap up the sweet sounds of pushing amps and driving recording equipment into the red. If phrases like ‘tape,’ ‘saturation,’ and ‘analog warmth’ get your blood pumping, you’re in the right place. PACKS favors the straight-to-the-point lo-fi rock of Sebadoh or early Pavement. This album leans closer to the former, except, where the Lou Barlow-led group might sprawl into lengthier sets, PACKS keeps things to a tight 24 minutes.

For the most part, ‘tight’ is not the best word for describing Take the Cake. Not that the band doesn’t play well, but a looseness takes precedence over clinical accuracy, and it’s easy to imagine these songs recorded with the band playing together live for just a couple takes. At times the recordings give light to little oddities of natural recording. On “Hangman” the drums almost cautiously wade in. While certainly something else in common with the lo-fi experimentalists of the ’80s or ’90s, this emphasizes more PACKS relation to more modern indie pop acts.

The endorsement of Fire Talk Records (Royal Mountain Records handles the Canadian release) clues in to this. Fire Talk has emerged as a likely heir to the throne of scrappy, basement-friendly indie rock and pop that has been astutely managed in recent years by labels like Double Double Whammy, the now-defunct Tiny Engines, or Topshelf Records. Not to say any of those labels have at any point had a monopoly on the niche, but their name on a record spine (or at the bottom of a streaming page) gives a reassuring indicator of what’s to come.

Like many of those contemporaries, PACKS gains much of its character through Link’s lyrics. These songs deal out fragmented bits of a person’s life. Little window peaks as we pass by. “New TV” sounds like eavesdropping on a couple’s interior design conversation. “Hold My Hand” delivers a confusing stream of images that make sense only when Link explains they relate to a rough night that included an accidental cut to the head, being hit by a car door while biking, and a bad band in the background.

Exaggerated physical harm becomes a recurring theme with Link describing herself rotting under plastic wrap on “Clingfilm” and asking “ratchet-tie me down to the roof of your car” on “Holy Water.” It’s an expression, perhaps, of the discontent and malaise that seems to linger behind Link’s droll vocals. While one can theorize at the meanings, Link’s cloudy lyrics leave the meaning generally more unclear than open-ended. As the band seems to value more the feel of a band consolidating behind one’s thoughts, that probably doesn’t pose much of an issue for PACKS.

Link does leave space for a few acoustic-driven tracks that expose another side of the band and her songwriting. “U Can Wish All U Want” aptly applies the cloudiness to daydreaming. The instrumental “My Dream” feels gently intricate. The light strum of “Hangman,” with its slippery slide guitar leads, serves as an important reminder that the scrappy rock PACKS produces likely still come from the plaintive and simple chords that Link first produced writing as a solo artist.

Take the Cake cuts to the chase and doesn’t diverge far from that base of unadorned songwriting and rough-around-the-edges indie rock. Don’t expect an adventure, but if you can settle in comfortably, you’ll likely enjoy the ride.

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By Cameron Carr