Upon first hearing the name Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band, I was a little hesitant. Something about that name inspired visions of cheesy Danielson Famile rip-offs, but we couldn’t even be that fortunate. What we’re treated to here is a middle of the road pleasant indie rock album, and therein lies its major flaws. It goes no further than pleasant; there’s nothing really noteworthy about it. It’d be unfair to say that this is a terrible album, but this album lies in a sort of musical limbo that might be worse for a band than releasing an absolutely awful album. It’s not praiseworthy, and it’s not cringe-worthy.

What we have here is certainly more Dan Boeckner than Danielson, and on a surface level that’d be a good thing. However, when you have a band like MSHVB, that doesn’t live up to the success of obvious influences, the tense indie rock of songs like “Leaving Trails” just lacks impact. Trust me, I’d love to love “Leaving Trails”, the riff is pretty catchy, it has me tapping my foot, but it just lacks the little somethings that made their predecessors so unique and interesting. It’s the lack of a catchy keyboard riff here, a little vocal fill there and even though it’s a well written song it’s just nothing I’ll ever feel compelled to listen to again. When I hear “At Night” I’m instantly made to think The Black Keys, but less muscular; for “George Clark”, Born Ruffians, but less playful; and “Cadence”’s angular guitar part is straight Retribution Gospel Choir, but less interesting. Simply, they strip whatever interesting quality that a band introduced into the run of the mill indie rock formula. Unfortunately, the rest of the songs suffer similar fates. Whether it’s the guitar stomp of “Hurrah” or the untitled acoustic closer, everything just falls a little short, is a little weak, and feels ultimately uninteresting.

See I really hate to sound so negative, MSHVB isn’t a band worthy of scorn. They write decent songs, they play their instruments well, they sound professional in a time where amateurism runs amuck, but even those amateurs make captivating moments in their music. Where The Messengers Meet just never really has any outstanding moments that and it suffers for it.