I write this little music review column occasionally, not much of anything really. In fact, column is probably a stretch. It's more like a paragraph about some band or another playing in a town of middling size. Pickin's are slim most of the time; local guys picking at instruments and a lot of not so awesome and usually not so interesting vocals.And cover songs...soooo many cover songs. Anyone who has ever lived in a smallish town knows the band I'm talking about. The name might be different but the song's the same. I still lift a dirty dive bar glass to those guys and ladies because they are doing it straight up for the love. Bless 'em.
Once in a while though, while I'm digging around for something to cover, I'll find one that I actually really like enough to buy an album. This was one of them. There's something Tom Petty-ish about his voice and Glen Phillips-ish about his style and lyrics. It's probably not music that will ever fill an arena, but it could pack a venue pretty tight. Decker, the man behind the band, writes a good hook and plays a pretty good guitar. Though there's something a little lonesome about it taken as a whole. I'm not talking about a Bon Iver stab-you-in-the-heart kind of lonesome, but more of a driving-across-the-desert-alone-at-night kind. Even the more upbeat tunes pulse with a little bit of bite.
The one little criticism I have, after having only listened to their last album, is inconsistency. The slow spots tend to get really slow to the point of drag and they don't have to when they clearly have a strength for the faster pacing, even with the more melancholy of lyrics. It makes it feel like filler and filler will always get the fast-forward finger.
Anyway- here's my toast to decker. Thanks for giving me something different to listen to today.
