There’s a decent rock album out right now from Bengaluru band Packers & Movers. ‘Men And Their Major Chords’ is nicely produced, well written and really seems like a fully realised set of songs that’s almost an hour long. Now, we have gone on and on in the past about how the phrase ‘debut album’ is used more like a marketing term by Indian indie artists – while technically true, it is more and more common for these ‘debuts’ to come two, three, four-plus years into their career. So, the part of the word that means ‘inexperienced’ or ‘fresh’ absolutely does not apply in these cases. Packers & Movers are the same, but also not at all at the same time. Let us explain.

This band was a band beforehand. They were called Over The Edge (consisting of founding members Dhanush Acharya & Aditya Meher) and were also making, well, rock music. After hammering away at it for a while, the two added Paul Daniel on drums, decided that they had found an identity for themselves, and it was not the one they had at that moment. So they chucked Over The Edge, well... (not in heart, of course) and started again as Packers & Movers. Now, with context, let’s talk about the album.

If you read the above paragraph, you will not be surprised one bit by the amount of polish on the songwriting here. These guys have worked at it for a while, and it shows. All eleven songs on the project retain a clear common thread and vibe while showing shades of different sounds and inspirations. ‘Two Timezones’ is a 2020s indie song through and through, complete with guitars that jangle as much as the 80s. The hilariously named ‘Soft Men Love Radiohead’ shows the band’s love of Radiohead in its superposition of odd sounds over very melancholy chords (there’s a lot of Colin Greenwood worship throughout the album, it seems like.)

The band is very comfortable in their current skin, so even the straight-ahead and simpler tunes here like ‘Foolish Thoughts’ or ‘The Room’ have more than enough interest on the production side of things to keep things interesting – or interesting enough. And when all of this comes together in just the right way, like on standouts ‘Cauliflower’ or the really rather wonderful ‘Boys And Girls’, this has some of the better indie rock tunes that have come out of the scene this year. So, the album’s good, and the band’s decision to be themselves while being a whole new band is, well, vindicated.

We spoke to Dhanush and Aditya about the album and more.

This band is a refresh with the same members - tell us the story of why the previous name and direction was perhaps not working and what went into choosing a new identity.

Dhanush: Well, the old name never really meant something – it was just a name that sounded cool to us. But the origin of Packers & Movers came From me and our friend Pranam. We were both sitting on a couch watch a timelapse video of a cargo ship going through the sea and Pranam suddenly goes, “Bro in the big picture, we are all just Packers & Movers.” And it was an instant click; we as human beings pack up all our emotions and keep moving ahead in life. It was a symbolic moment for us. And it sounded bloody cool.

Aditya: Funnily enough, we have named all the albums that’d be coming out over time. Packers & Movers was Over The Edge’s second album. Although the second PAM album would still be a self titled one, it’ll always remain an inside joke.

While writing songs, does it often happen that a part is “more the old band than Packers & Movers” and if so, what do you all do with it?

Dhanush: Definitely songs like ‘The Room’ still have the old style to it, but yet they’re new. And throughout the album, there are multiple places that feel like it’s still the same band but with more matured writing...

Aditya: Oh definitely, we have these moments of explosion that we always did with OTE. As we grew up as writers and producers we realized PAM is a very integration of OTE – really hard to describe it in words because then it takes away the charm of it.

Tell us about your influences on this debut album.

Dhanush: Well, we started writing in mid-2023... around that time I was listening to a lot of Tame Impala, The 1975, and sometime around late 2023 I was hooked on Radiohead and still am. But sonically, we got our influences from Far Caspian, Mk.Gee, a whole lot of the 1975 – something about the perfect harmony between lo-fi synths and DI guitar tones .

Aditya: Same to be honest, Dhanush and I always grew up listening to the same music and sharing songs back and forth. I still have my days of listening to really dreamy and washy music, Turnover is a band that is another favourite of ours, Smashing Pumpkins and a lot of Slowdive.

There are many different sounds and tones that go across the music on here – was there any new ground y'all broke during the writing process that surprised yourselves?

Dhanush: I think one of the most favourite things we used in the album was the Reaper stock synth plugin. We used it for all the portomento parts. Adi had recently picked up a modular Juno and we had a lot of fun including it in our soundscape. Most of the guitars are run directly to the sound card; the tone came from SSL channel strip emulation. We just cranked up the gain for distortion. I used a very minimal plugin mix that mostly included UAD’s Spark bundle and Reaper stock stuff.

Aditya: Sometimes I try to sample as well and run it through cheap audio widgets and try to make soundscapes out of it. I love working with arps and tape delay. I also have this cheap karaoke channel strip/mixer, really fun to use it all as sound design tools.

Where can we expect to see you all live next?

Dhanush: Mostly right now, our audience is based in Bangalore – and we would love to explore the rest of the country as we grow. But with our plans with recording the live set and making music videos and visualisers, we are just starting out. We have a lot more to come. 

Aditya: Hahaha, IPs around India, sign us up. Jk. But part of being an independent band is to also find ways to network and grow your connections, If only things were more accessible to us... the learning curve seems to be a steep one there. For a band to start from scratch is no joke and takes a while to settle in. But we are hoping for a couple of shows this year for sure.

'Men And Their Major Chords' is available on streaming.