At only ten songs and barely thirty-three minutes, Mt. St. Helens’ self-proclaimed “magnum opus” values economy over accumulation, a rare and admirable aim amidst far too many bloated track listings. Of Others is an enormous step up from their prior attempts at combining Chicago punk aggression with mid ’90s D.C. complexity, gearing more toward the latter without losing the bite of the former. I usually call out bands for the hubris of tags like magnum opus, but I’ll be damned if Mt. St. Helens didn’t shame their past work on Of Others.

The band’s improved across the board. The balance between dynamic, mid-tempo tracks (“The Time of Low Volume,” “Seething Is Believing”) and muscular rockers (“City Of” and “Massive Dosage”) is spot-on, giving Of Others more range and than its predecessors. Quinn Goodwillie’s vocals no longer relapse into yelping/bellowing after finding a solid melody, suggesting that his work in the poppier Sleep Out has bled over. Ben Geier’s drumming trades flash for purpose, earning the long-awaited improvement in drum production. The guitar lines are tighter, complementing rather than crowding each other. Even the slight missteps are forgivable: the devil-horn evocation of “Centicorn” doesn’t fit into the album’s nervous energy, but at only a minute long, the ode to a hundred-horned unicorn is an intriguing departure before the closing slow burn of “Interruption.”

Of Others will be officially released on August 31 on Two Thumbs Down Records, the band’s new home after Divot closed shop. No word on a national tour or a vinyl pressing, but those in the Chicago-land area should hit up the record release show at the Beat Kitchen.