A legacy of coffeehouses and constant rainfall peg Seattle as a city of characteristic calm. But just west, not far away at all, orca whales are tossing tortured seals sixty feet into the air before biting them into several pieces of warm blubber, bloodying the nutrient-rich waters of the Puget Sound with the red of these small mammals’ ripped veins. Great whites are multiplying faster than us on land, trashing the arms and legs of swimming organic farmers, while just a bit further away, surfers flail in the waves, unable to blame anyone for the nature of the beast. It's just the circle of life, man. This is the flow of Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band’s second album, Where The Messengers Meet, which has an overwhelming sense of control seized and lost in the fury that gives pause to the vocals alone.   

Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band has many of the same soft construction blocks Washington, Oregon, and other Pacific Northwest bands are building a home upon. “Soft?” Soft in the sense that a master book of warm organ instrumentals and fairly repetitive guitar work exists throughout the album. Fortunately for the band, the soft delivers a positive outcome that more often than not leads to something very hard and profound, if not a tiny bit wickedly mysterious. It's no surprise that MSHVB opened for Cursive, who are a staple figure and possibly the best ever to make a career out of a mixed-genre fusion of punk and brutal emotion, along with all the other shit you can't quite put your finger upon.

The raw croon and concise jump between mild and mayhemetic instrumental poles gives Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band the potential to be one of the best live shows I could hope to see. We will all be thrilled when they make it off of the west coast and towards some comparatively calm waters, especially with regards to the sea creatures that can eat you that the band deals with regularly. By Will Tunstall

Drivan are a Swedish ensemble that comprises a cruisy and otherworldly sound on their debut release, Disko. Their music is catchy, artful, and very original, made so by pulling from ‘70s prog rock and Swedish folk, which somewhat sounds like the chillwave genre. Most of the tracks on Disko are loops composed by singer Kim Hiorthøy and then elaborated on with treatments from the rest of the group. Each member of Drivan has a unique and artistic background, enabling them to draw from influences like theater, dance, folk, and other various performing arts, giving the music a very distinct feel… not to mention it’s all sung in Swedish.

There’s a Portishead meets Charlotte Gainsbourg meets The Carpenters thing happening with Drivan, and you know what? It works. It’s great for a rainy Sunday morning, a long late-night drive, or just some chilled-out, interesting background music. Implementing folkie guitar plucking, abstract piano work, and electronic beats, there are some dodgy moments, but there also some great tracks along the lines of “Låt Det Va,” “Kämpa,” and “Det Gör Ingenting.”

Music in foreign languages can sometimes be hard to swallow; it’s not readily identifiable and seems just plain weird. Disko is definitely weird and may take a few listens to adjust to, but Drivan’s music is revealed as that much more complex and interesting to a foreign listener, especially when the catchy hooks set in. Next time you want to impress a girl with how sensitive, worldly, or cultured you are, just play Disko for her and make up something about how you picked this rare LP up while backpacking in Europe… And then pretend to translate it to whatever you want. By Peter Viele

The latest nugget unearthed from the Daptone Records vault comes from ten-piece supergroup The Budos Band via their third album, The Budos Band III (don’t confuse us too much, boys). Birthed from the same soul-funk revival scene that’s delivered hits for artists as disparate as British drug queen Amy Winehouse, Georgia prison guard Sharon Jones, and forgotten soul legend Lee Fields, The Budos Band occupy a sub-niche all their own, purporting to be “Staten Island’s sole Afro-funk collective.” Whether that’s true or not, there’s no way to deny the inescapable groove of their horn-led sound, which falls somewhere between the eerie nostalgia of movies like Pulp Fiction or Get Shorty and the hip-shimmying breakdowns of late-night dance clubs the world over.

The Budos Band frontman Jared Tankel said he thought The Budos Band III was going to be the first psychedelic doom-rock record ever released by Daptone, and although guitars are more prominent on creeping tracks like “Black Venom,” “Unbroken, Unshaven,” and “Raja Haje,” we’re still launched straight into a fast-cut blaxploitation action flick on album opener “Rites Of The Ancients.” That mostly has to do with the towering saxophones and bleating trumpets of Tankel and Andrew Greene, as well as spot-on percussion from Dame Rodriguez, Vincent Balestrino, Rob Lombardo, and John Carbonella than anything else.

Yet “River Serpentine” and “Golden Dunes” both have an easygoing rock ‘n’ roll vibe, highlighting Daniel Foder’s tight bass lines and Mike Deller’s queasy organ riffs, respectively. But it’s not until “Nature’s Wrath” slows down to a crawl that The Budos Band III really sets off into new territory. Punchy horns fist-pump the air with drunken bravado, while a scintillating guest flute spot from Daisy Sugarman adds a little female beauty to The Budos Band’s masculine swagger. The only stumble on the album comes at the beginning of “Budos Dirge,” but even that quick mistake is amended within minutes. Long story short, these guys have got the soul-funk thing down pat — there may not be a better band in the world right now performing this brand of ear-pleasing revivalism. Sure, The Budos Band III is all instrumental and can run together at times, but better late-summer cruising music just does not exist. Toss this one in and start dancing, sweating, and dreaming of the day The Budos Band grace the East Coast with their presence. By Nick McGregor

Roots music is the osteoporosis-riddled backbone of the American music industry. Every now and then, an artist will come through and give that crumbly backbone a hefty shot of cortisone, or possibly even a new vertebrae. Think The Black Crowes, Mason Jennings or The Avett Brothers. Joe Firstman, while impressive, is not one of these medicine men. Joe is more like Donavon Frankenreiter, a seemingly good-natured guy that makes mediocre updated roots music. Firstman even sounds like Frankenreiter, with his ethereal, limited, and at times strained voice. Unlike Frankenreiter though, Firstman’s guitar playing is technically proficient, if a little uninspired.

Five of the ten songs on Live At The Treehouse feature guest contributors, and those are the five best songs. “Marlene And Her Sisters” is a good old-fashioned folk-country duet featuring Jamie Drake. Drake’s soothing pipes reel in Firstman’s whine, letting him focus on a complex and beautiful fingerpicked acoustic guitar line. “Fight Song,” featuring Brian Wright, is a Leadbelly-styled blues song on which Firstman tries to talk tough, and the guitar playing will make you sway, as will every other Leadbelly-influenced song. But Firstman’s hollow attempt to convince listeners he’s a bluesman falls on deaf ears. What kind of bluesman leaves Atlantic Records to lead the house band for the Carson Daily Show, only to get laid off a couple years down the road when the show was restructured? A real bluesman would break an empty whiskey bottle over Carson’s head the first chance he got.

“Speak Your Mind” is the standout Firstman-only track on Live At The Tree House, with our man literally beating out a catchy line on his guitar and keeping his vocals within their limited, charming range. Unfortunately, even on “Speak Your Mind,” Firstman can’t string together a very poetic sentence: “What you do not know, you don’t know,” he muses. No shit, Sherlock. Lennie from John Steinbeck’s Of Mice And Men had better lines than that. True to his North Carolina roots, Firstman has a solid grasp on the technical structure of roots music. But recorded in Hermosa Beach, CA, this modern interpretation lacks the soul, grit, and ingenuity of the originals. Maybe all he needs is a little Southern creative inspiration? By Alex Lemonde-Gray