The Slant is giving State College a straight up taste of their folky music blend.

Fueled by the release of their third album, Animanatomy, the band will play a benefit for Invisible Children tonight at 9 at Chronic Town.

They can also be seen in the Movin' On Battle of the Bands on April 13. I talked to Penn State students Brad Austin (junior-geography), who plays bass and piano, and Mark Zedonek, who sings vocals and plays acoustic guitar. Zedonek is a student at California University of Pennsylvania.

The other members are Andre Costello, a student at Capital University, Mike Kamper, a student at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, and Zach Dow, a student at Bloomsburg.

Q: How would you describe your sound?

A: Mark: I think it's a combo of a folk background and I guess I'd call it like psychadelic folk, but there are definitely some rock influences, and contemporary [influences] too like Radiohead and Coldplay, but more folky. It's hard to describe really because it varies song to song. Some are completely different than other ones.

Q: When and how did you guys get together?

A: Brad: We're all from the same town. We all went to high school together, and the drummer and I started playing together in 8th grade. Mark and the guitarist started playing together a year younger. Senior year we got together and started recording and whatnot.

Q: How did you come up with the name The Slant?

A: Brad: When we first got together and decided that we had a decent selection of songs to include, we realized we didn't have anything to call ourselves. We enlisted friends to think of a name. Basically we just got tired of thinking of names and picked that one. [We] realized it's kind of a cool name; I personally think of it as when you watch the news or whatever it always has a slant kind of thing.

Mark: We were trying to think of a name for a long time, like half a year, and we were shooting around a couple names, but just couldn't agree on [one]. We asked friends if they just thought of a word to write it down. One of my friends did this for like a whole month and e-mailed me a list of all of them. Once we put a "the" in front of us and called ourselves the Slant everyone pretty much liked it.

Q: How would you describe the sound of your new album, Animanatomy?

A: Mark: This is a lot folkier; it's more of like psychedelic folk than we've ever done before, but it's still rock in certain parts. It's an interesting blend of where we were and where we're going.

Q: How did you come up with the name for the album?

A: Mark: Our first album was called Animatraminal. When I was a kid back in like fifth grade I would come up with words on my own. It wasn't a hobby; I just did it. I would write down words and string different words together; one of the words was "animatraminalistic". I didn't think of it until after fifth grade but down the road in like eleventh grade when we recorded songs and decided they should be on the album, we said it as possible band name. It doesn't have a lot of significance; [we] just thought it sounded cool. It's hard to come up with a name, and [our] sound is different than a lot of bands. It was hard to classify; [we] couldn't think of a single word and didn't know what genre we fit in. We used a word that we made up so it'd be like we're making up our own sound at the same time. It's a feeling that you can't describe, so the word has to be made up as well.

Q: How do you find time to practice together when you're all at different places?

A: Brad: We're basically tight enough to just play whenever; since we've been playing together long enough we know how well we interact and we know the songs through listening to them. We can convey songs and learn how to jam well between us.

Mark: I practice almost every day. I play my part and do a lot of the rhythm guitar and singing, so I'll do that on my own. I work on songs, then show them to the band and they put the different parts, like bass and drum, in it. I try to do what I can by myself because we're so spread out. Usually we only practice before a show.

Q: Who are your influences?

A: Brad: The Beatles, all the way up to Radiohead and things of that type. Also the Beach Boys and other classic rock, like Led Zeppelin, Cream, Pink Floyd and just all kinds of fun stuff -- a big melting pot of whatever we happen to be listening to.