Audacity - Hyper Vessels (2016) Lossless

The guys in Audacity don't really waste any time being subtle or tricky. They just blast through their punky, poppy, garagey songs like they are all in a race to see who finishes first. Previous albums have been fun and loud, capable of knocking paint chips off the walls of rundown clubs and basements. The preceding one, 2013's Butter Knife, added a little bit of power pop and scraped off a few of the rough edges. Hyper Vessels tones down the pop and slaps the noise back on. With Ty Segall in the producer's chair, there's no fear that they'll take it too far and make something slick and safe. Instead, he gets a massive, scuffed-up, and powerful sound out of the band. Guitarists Matt Schmalfeld and Kyle Gibson are the heroes here, wrenching ugly noise, slashing chords, and gnarly riffs out of the instruments. Even if the songs were on the boring side, the album would be worth hearing just for their efforts. Luckily, the band cranks out a batch of high-energy rockers, stomping hard rock, and the occasional almost pop song, all of them with giant, grabby hooks. The sound and songs combine into a juggernaut of garage punk that's set to fold, spindle, and mutilate, while still being fun enough to have hardy listeners bopping along. There are more bands doing this in 2016 than the sharpest mathematician could count; some of them are pedestrian, some of them are total freaks, some of them make all the right rock & roll moves. You can count Audacity among the latter and thank Ty Segall (and co-producer Isaac Thotz) for wringing greatness out of them on Hyper Vessels.