About
Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band exploded on to the Seattle music scene in the summer of 2008. By the following spring they had signed to the influential indie label Dead Oceans, and released their first album, grabbing national attention from Spin, NME, Paste, and a host of other major publications. The performance of their first album: a wild, unhinged, and capricious group of songs, helped earn them a reputation for putting on vastly entertaining performances. They soon embarked on tours alongside Cursive, Japandroids, Frog Eyes, and made appearances at several festivals across the US and Canada. In August of 2010, MSHVB released their second full-length album Where the Messengers Meet, an ambitious and poetic narrative spread out and woven together by dark and sophisticated song structures. The songs themselves are an exercise in contrast: delicate and gentle, dark and brooding. The record collects several different approaches to composition into one cohesive whole, and is held together with lush production and a haunting atmosphere. The band left Seattle in September of the same year in support of the record. After returning from tours with Portugal the Man, David Bazan, and Dead Confederate, they came to face to face with a seemingly endless series of tragic and difficult circumstances. Collectively and as individuals the members of the band buckled down and weathered the storms going on around them, knowing they would continue in spite of an uncertain future. After two full-length albums, hundreds of shows played across North America, and a period of hibernation, Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band reemerge this spring. They will be releasing and performing several new songs, written mostly during singer/guitarist Benjamin Verdoes’ summer sabbatical in San Francisco. Infused with the warmth and simplicity that proceeds from life’s unpredictability, their new music and line-up reflect a band that is continually pushing to reinvent itself. Far from being finished, MSHVB, it seems, may be only just beginning.