Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band

To viewers’ amazement and frustration, early Family Guy episodes tried to stuff as many semi-connected lines of thought into twenty-two minutes spaces, and Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band achieves a similar effect with their self-titled debut LP. Their name alone relieves the listener of the expectation that anything they do will make much sense, but for those willing to suspend their notions about things such as song structure, St. Helens can be an entertaining, if befuddling, experience.

At their best, they are joyous and wild, and it’s hard not to admire their musicianship and energy. You get the impression during Anchors Dropped that almost every note is chosen for where it will fit in the harmony. On Masquerade, guitarist Benjamin Verdoes tries to channel Brian May, and during this instrumental cluster bomb, figuring out the number of guitar parts going on is like guessing the number of jelly beans in the jar. Their lyrics often concern adventure and violence, but in a cheerful way, and at one point at least, Verdoes sounds like the anti-Neko Case. “Did you forget, I’m going on a hunt? The traps are set, I want you to know. I’m going to kill the mighty animal, to stuff their heads, to hang around you when you’re alone.” Incidentally, he also spears giant squid to steal ink and digs for dinosaur bones in distant lands. He likes his place on the food chain, it would seem.

On the other end, tunes like the sloppy Little Red Shoes only recycle ideas from earlier in the disc. In these instances, the drastic dynamic changes and screwy rhythmic patterns seem intended to obscure poor songwriting rather than enhance it. And On the Collar - the slowest, longest, and by far most stagnant song on the CD - is just about the worst possible choice for a closer.

The unintended side effect of Albatross, Albatross, Albatross, as it jumps manically from idea to idea like an Eddie Izzard routine (they manage to reference Zepplin, the Strokes and Fugazi in the same minute), is to make every other track seem comparatively restrained and focused. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with unleashing all your tricks, some of them hits and some of them misses, in a five-and-a-half-minute space – including an E.L.P.-esque instrumental tangent near the end – but it is a weird track on an already weird CD. O.K., maybe there is something inherently wrong with that.