Mt St Helens Vietnam Band Tour w/ David Bazan. Vote for them on Magnet’s Most Anticipated Releases Poll

photo courtesy of Ice Cream Man

As we near the release of Mt St Helens Vietnam Band’s new album Where The Messengers Meet on Tuesday, things are heating up. Besides their free CD release show in Seattle at the Space Needle Mural on August 27, MSHVB will be touring with David Bazan on five dates in September. Where The Messengers Meet is also currently the front-runner in Magnet Magazine’s poll of “Most Anticipated Releases” next week. Lets keep them in the lead! You can go and vote for them RIGHT HERE. Check out the tour dates below and stay tuned for more dates this fall and other MSHVB news shortly!

Mt St Helens Vietnam Band On Tour:

08/27 Seattle, WA- Space Needle Mural- Free CD Release show sponsored by KEXP

09/10 Boise, ID-  Nuerolux w/ David Bazan

09/11 Salt Lake City, UT- Urban Lounge w/ David Bazan

09/12 Denver, CO- Larimer Lounge w/ David Bazan

09/14 Omaha, NE- The Waiting Room w/ David Bazan

09/15 Columbia, MO- Mojo’s w/ David Bazan

09/16 Chicago, IL- Empty Bottle

Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band’s New Album Now Available for Pre-Order

We’re just weeks away from the release of Where The Messengers Meet the new album from Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band on August 3, but you can pre-order your own copy right now and receive a instant download code. Not only that, the first fifty people to pre-order the record will receive a lyrics book handmade by the band. You can pre-order the album right HERE. We also are proud to share “Hurrah” the new single from Where The Messengers Meet. Check it out HERE.

Check out photos of the lyrics booklet after the jump.

Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band Announce Details of New Album

Dead Oceans is proud to announce the forthcoming release of Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band’s sophomore album Where The Messengers Meet on August 3. While it has only been 18 months since Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band’s self-titled debut, they have traveled what feels like thousands of miles.

Where The Messengers Meet is in real time, an expansion of the sound of the band’s eponymous debut. They take the same frantic and skewed elements and stretch them out, giving them room to breathe and blossom. Thematically, Where The Messengers Meet is an exercise in contrasts: the delicate and gentle, the dark and furious. Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band collects powerful compositions into one cohesive whole held together with lush production and a haunting atmosphere. They are imperceptibly inching away from an angular style influenced by Modest Mouse and Wolf Parade, instead incorporating an epic sound recalling both the modern masters such as Arcade Fire, and classic pioneers, like Pink Floyd.

Listen HERE to our first offering from Where The Messengers Meet “Leaving Trails,” which SPIN Magazine says “showcases Benjamin Verdoes’ distorted yet atmospheric vocals and commanding yet subtle guitar work, which switches from ominous to uplifting. Fleshed out by Jared Price (bass), the song’s sound is simultaneously chaotic and soothing.”

Still true on Where The Messengers Meet are classic rock-informed guitar leads and thundering anthems, but the band carefully melds those elements with subtle organ sounds, layered strings and a measure of restraint. The songs feel related to one another lyrically, musically, thematically–it feels like a true album, something that holds together from start to finish.

The recording of Where The Messengers Meet was a patient process, conducted over eight months, in part during Seattle’s darkest and rainiest time of year. The slow process of recording in an old loft near the harbor led to this careful approach. This band has taken their past, and transformed it. The hooks are still prevalent, the catchy sing-along moments not forgotten, but with the help of engineer / co-producer Jonathan Warman, they arrived at something much grander.

Frog Eyes Announce North American Tour, Share New MP3 from Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph

The blistering collection of songs found on FROG EYES’ forthcoming Dead Oceans debut, Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph, practically beg to be heard in a live setting, where Carey Mercer and bandmates perfectly reenact their many fiery moods and tensions on stage. Anyone who has witnessed the electric fury of a Frog Eyes live show knows the tumult that awaits them. Frog Eyes will be bringing their live cacophony to clubs throughout North America this May and June. Mark your calendars.

Paul’s Tomb was recorded almost entirely live to tape, with the guitars stabbing and shimmering, and Mercer coming on strong, like a crazed, guttural Van Morrison, playing with cadence and syllables at every turn. It’s heavy, raw, literate, otherworldy and in the end, utterly compelling. The more you give of yourself to Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph, the more you get lost in its gnarled world.

In a Spinner interview, Mercer called Paul’s Tomb “luminal,” when describing the out-of-time sound the band hoped to capture: “‘I don’t know if we ever verbalized it, but what we wanted to do was make a record that was neither yesteryear nor that super-hip Brooklyn sound,’ the singer-guitarist tells Spinner. ‘I’ve always been attracted to the idea of liminal space and this record fits with it; sonically it’s hard to pin down what era it’s from.’”

True enough, and what Mercer does not say can be read between the lines. Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph is a timeless victory.

For further proof of this achievement, the band is happy to share with you another magnificent cut from Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph, “Lear in Love.” Download it HERE.

Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph will be released on April 27th (26th in the UK). Over the course of the North American blitzkrieg, Frog Eyes will be joined by contemporaries like Plants and Animals, Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band, Pearly Gate Music and Beach Fossils. See the full list of dates HERE.