I suppose by a group's second album, you shouldn't be dwelling so much on its name, but going by "Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band" somehow makes less sense than it did the first time around. In the context of the Seattle quintet's self-titled debut from 2009, you could at least consider it a riff on the overblown monikers preferred by enthusiastic, collective-ish types such as themselves. But on Where the Messengers Meet, they forgo any of the upheaval or explosiveness implied by their namesakes, instead playing squarely within the strictures of indie rock at its most no-frills; five years ago, this would've been called blog-rock.
Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band wasn't a good record, but its exuberance and overstuffed arrangements at least helped counter its derivativeness. But Messengers drips with resignation and defeat-- the record actually sounds depressed. Whether half-heartedly bringing the thunder on the blunt breakdown of "Hurrah" or aimlessly working through mushy progressions most everywhere else, you envision someone disinterestedly picking at their meal.
It's almost like MSHVB are going out of their way to go unnoticed, as there's just so little to grab onto here, in terms of either hooks or texture. It's a punishingly monochromatic listen because nearly everything is built on the same foundation of flavorless guitar roughage, Benjamin Verdoes' anodyne vocals, leaden drums, and laggard tempos that make each three-minute chunk feel twice as long. Even when they're on the verge of something memorable, they can't help but get in their own way: "At Night" and "Hurrah" feature swinging verses, but they never pick up steam thanks to an antagonistic relationship with rhythmic stability that makes it all sound like Cold War Kids at their most jazzbo-insufferable.
That said, a willingness to play in prog time signatures is pretty much the only thing that they do to generate friction, and at the very least, the relatively uptempo rock of "Leaving Trails" and "George Clark" manages to kick up some dust even if MSHVB are mostly running in place. For the most part, though, MSHVB simply slump-- Verdoes' stiff melismatics and waterlogged guitar arpeggios are throwbacks to the early-2000s bands who knew wimpy takes on the ballads from The Bends got you prime real estate in the NME.
And yet their residence on the usually trustworthy Dead Oceans label and opening slots for the likes of Japandroids speak highly of the company they keep, so it leads me to wonder, "what is everyone else hearing that I'm not?" But where you'd expect a melody to take an intriguing turn, they simply flatline as if to suggest MSHVB just went with the first one that came to mind. They're much too young (Approved Talking Point: the drummer is 15) to sound this damn old, and even its quick turnaround and barren album cover suggest that they wanted to be done with this album as soon as possible. Guess the feeling's mutual.
