Audacity

The four members of Audacity, a scrappy Californian garage punk outfit, share a lengthy shared past that stretches back to their earliest days making music. Matt Schmalfeld on vocals and guitar, Kyle Gibson also handling vocals and guitar, Cameron Crowe on bass, and Thomas Alvarez behind the drums came together first in 2002, still in grade school, under the initial name Nontoxic. The group adopted the Audacity moniker by 2009, at which point they joined forces with the hometown indie powerhouse Burger Records and issued their first full-length album, Power Drowning. Their blend of punk, garage, and slacker pop aligned naturally with the roster, prompting extensive touring in the years leading up to the 2012 release of Mellow Cruisers while they also managed to put out several EPs and singles along the way. Seattle-based independent label Suicide Squeeze next put out their 2013 album Butter Knife, after which the band embarked on runs through Europe and Japan and maintained a steady output of singles on imprints including Volar and Burger. Ty Segall and Isaac Thotz oversaw the recording of the subsequent album, 2016’s Hyper Vessels, working out of Segall’s home studio in Eagle Rock, California. That record marked the final appearance of Crowe on bass, since he departed the group around the time of its release.