Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band

Where the Messengers Meet

Label: Dead… Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band

Where the Messengers Meet

Label: Dead Oceans

Grade: B+

Rocks Like: An angrier verison of the Shins

Like your indie rock morbid, downtrodden and faintly inexplicable? Have we got a band for you.

Mt. St. Helen’s Vietnam Band offers just such fare on its sophomore album Where the Messengers Meet. Forced lyrics and sullen riffs combine to craft songs of angst-ridden mediocrity and bitter remorse … but isn’t that sometimes exactly what you’re looking for?

Much of the album features the acoustic quality of a bathroom recording, presumably intentional but no less annoying than a preteen’s YouTube video. Multivocalist tracks do not so much harmonize as echo in a ghost-like way, which is a certain achievement whether you enjoy the aural effect or not.

If the listener can get past the lo-fi sound and severe depressive-vibe, some musical talent might be lurking. The track “Hurrah” could not be less celebratory and yet still manages to be catchy. Likewise, “At Night” shows potential with alluring melodies and strains of surprising string instruments, but it is held back by nonsensically intense lyrics that the vocalists present more as slurred speech than song — “The fire only burns in your eyes at night … incomprehensible muttering … spider bites.”

“Cadence” is a standout for its reassuringly predictable beat and fairly poetic subject matter — analyzing footstep cadence for relationship compatibility.

Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band offers a fierce and angry sound that has no place on your iPod’s shuffle or in daily life, but it’s album might well suit those certain dark occasions.