From the Decker House

From the Decker House is a brief, pop-ish, countryside-style, storytelling album reminiscent of Bob Dylan ramblings, although not nearly as timeless. The band met in Idlewild, CA in 2004, but now records from the opposite end of the country in New York. This album takes its name from the apparently decrepit Decker House estate in the mountains behind Deposit, NY that the band adopted as a home base for the concoction of this album.

“Los Angeles,” the first song on the album, is a strutting intro that almost reminds one of a Beatles-style love tune with kicky, adoration-spewing lyrics about moving westward to catch sunshine. There is a sense of sharpness in the instrumentals that nearly overwhelms the softness of Erick Jordan’s raspy vocal curls. His achy whines transmit a feeling of searching that echoes redundantly throughout the nineteen-minute album and bounces against the organ that Mackenzie Vernacchio expertly chops into the leading guitar.

The Rosewood Thieves found a nice place in the mountain country of Deposit to collaborate on this album, and it sounds like good friends on a quiet vacation making music. Despite, through the endeavor to describe it accurately, having listened to the album sufficient times to get the lyrics caught in my mind, there is not quite enough lasting power to make From the Decker House a favorite in my own collection.

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