Audacity
Hyper Vessels
Suicide Squeeze Records (2016)
Sounds Like: No Bunny, The Lovely Bad Things, Bad Sport
Score: 8.0
“There’s a fire in your apartment / It’s getting hotter and hotter / Why bother to put out the flames?” Those words, the chorus to “Flames” off of Audacity’s rambunctious new record, Hyper Vessels, can perfectly encapsulate the last ten years that they have spent making music together. Years before the millennial resurgence of the bubbly SoCal bands via Burger Records, these guys had been lighting flames in the living rooms and backyards of Fullerton with their aggressively loud blend of garage-punk.
There’s been plenty of growing up done within the band since their last full-length, 2013’s Butter Knife, and while that usually results in a very climatic breakup between band and OG fans, growing up hasn’t affected Audacity’s music. Right off the bat, Hyper Vessels’ opener “Counting the Days,” reacquaints you with the brilliantly messy and ever-urgent pace of the band’s sound. “Not Like You” is packed with the right amount of adolescent “fuck you” energy, blended within well-crafted tempo changes that seem to make the song sound longer than its actual two minute mark.
The mighty Ty Segall steps in on production duties for Hyper Vessels, but he seems to have let the band find their own way around this album when it came time to record, chiming in only when necessary. It’s given the songs a sense of familiarity listeners have grown accustomed to, all while sonically extending their boundaries and exploring new arrangements. One song where you can definitely see Segall fingerprints is “Umbrellas.” The band’s growth is evident as guitarist/vocalist, Kevin Gibson, sings “this town, everything is plain / Umbrellas love the rain, and it’s so easy to forget your name” to a simultaneously calm and striking rhythm section.
The growing up again catches up to the band as they dissect the absurdity of focusing so much time on a game in “Baseball.” The pace and thumping bass lines pick up for a fierce second part of the album, and the riffs on one of my favorite tracks, “Dirty Boy,” still exude traces of the crazy backyard days of the band. With wailing solos and an anthemic chorus, this snappish three-minute jam is sure to become a favorite at shows.
The album ends on a series of high notes, with explosive songs like “Overrated,” an ode to the frustrative nature of losing friends over trivial things as time passes. It’s hard to deny the resemblance that album closer, “Lock on the Door,” shares with Third Eye Blind’s “Never Let You Go’ — both song’s intros sound eerily similar. But, resemblances apart, Hyper Vessels is a phenomenally fun, sharp, and exuberant album that was worth the three-year wait. Audacity have established themselves as a band not to fuck with. Ten years down, still in their mid-twenties, and with no signs of dimming their flame anytime soon, we can only imagine what album number five will sound like.
-Alan Madrigal
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