The band Decker calls its sound "psychedelic desert folk," and each of those words carries roughly equal weight.
The folk influence is a carry-over from earlier incarnations of the band. Before its fourth album - last year's Slider - leader Brandon Decker wrote the songs and brought people in to round them out. "I didn't feel they were really musical," he said in a phone interview last week. Rather, they were vehicles to say something.
But when the band performs at Rozz-Tox on April 20, Decker will be emphasizing the other two words. In its current form as a four-piece, the folk leanings are somewhat obscured by the wide-open space reflecting its home base of Sedona, Arizona, and the spaciness of psychedelic rock. (The band stylizes its name as "decker.", but for readability I'm ignoring that.)
On Slider and the epic "Cellars" (from the upcoming Patsy EP), there's a comfortable balance between direct simplicity and airy, patient exploration. Instead of being dense in any given moment, the songs wander purposefully, collecting detail to achieve their fullness.
