Decibully and A Lull @ Schubas, Jan 21, … way more music than two bands should be capable of making!

Somewhere In The World mp3 Decibully World Travels Fast

I almost walked out on the headliner of this one. Yep. One of my favorite bands, A Lull performed their going-away show that night and it was awesome. They premiered one, never-before played song (“Pregnancy”) and a two other new ones that I’d not heard (“Spread It All Around” and “Pot Luck”) and it was wonderful to see them again. As always, the stage was filled with drums of all sizes and their noise absolutely filled the room. I met a friend there I hoped he’d like A Lull, with their percussion-heavy, melodic songs. The room was packed with their fans. All of us eager to send our favorite band off on a three week tour, armed with new music. When the members of A Lull sing, harmonizing, sweetly high range notes just hanging out there in space surrounded by a clattering of trumpet and tambourine and snare drum, you realize that in all of this apparent chaos there is a very intentional and clear line of delivery. For all seven (!) of them to work together on stage and it not result in that noise my garbage disposal makes when a fork gets stuck in it surely takes practice, skill, and talent. A Lull personifies all three of those qualities to the max. The video below is for a song that I heard early on, the song that woo’d me toward them. But don’t judge them solely on this. They are this and much, much more. We all, the starry-eyed ones, caught in their cross-hairs, anticipate the new album. They’ve been teasing us with new material for months now. I hope we don’t devour them before it’s released to us. In the meantime, buy their CD, Ice Cream Bones here and go here to see their tour dates!

A Lull “Skinny Fingers” from A Lull on Vimeo.

In between bands I turned to my friend and said, “Oh I don’t know about this next one… the description in Wikipedia says ‘folk’ are you sure you’re going to be able to handle this?” And he blanched a little, noticeably. We tried to appraise the situation; long and lanky band members, a slouchy hat, a casually thrown on scarf, a very small drum kit (!), a mac laptop (as it PINK? oh no, that was just stage lighting, whew!), the lead singer came out and plugged in an acoustic guitar and we felt quite certain this was a non-starter. None of these guys looked to me like they were gonna RAWK. And I encouraged my friend to just let me know, we’d be able to sneak out at any point. He even got his coat off the hook on the wall in preparation. We inched a bit closer to the middle back of the room, just in case. I’d never heard of Decibully. Shame on me.

William Seidel approached the mic and started singing and I thought, “oh well, we’ll give them three songs at least, before we leave.” Less than a minute later the whole band burst in on him and my friend and I turned to each other with astonishment. This shit was good. It was damn good. Decibully, it turns out, is a particularly talented indie rock band out of Milwaukee that knows just when to turn the volume down and when to let it all explode. Opening with “Broken Glass” Seidel’s earnestness soon gave way to complete, drop dead indie-head-nodding goodness. I can’t recall for sure, they held me in their spell for the entire set, but it seems that they played their entire new album, World Travels Fast, that night.

Songs like “Don’t Believe the Hype” showcase the capacity of this band for building tension in a song to the point where you’re gasping for that hard downbeat, begging for the clash of cymbals and swirling of guitars. And where other bands might give a strong, bass/kick drum lead boom, dragging you into a hard groove, Decibully takes it into another place altogether. That other end of high notes with keyboards and sharp harmonies simply compliments Seidel’s tenor vocals, leaving me shaking my head, … not in confusion or disregard but in pure happy release. Did I mention just how wrong I was about this band? Damn they’re good.

Decibully encapsulate many good things that an indie band should, their music is atmospheric; “Hour of Noise” is a large canvas of sound. World Travels Fast balances acoustic, stripped-down tracks with immense, carefully crafted pieces. “Somewhere In The World” is one of those songs where all the pieces (there are many!) fit together perfectly, making my head spin in a wonderful way. The counter rhythms of the keyboards and shaker, against the more obvious booms of Aaron Vold’s drums (that tiny drumkit gives you the wrong idea, Vold uses that kick drum like a hammer, it’s amazing) give Decibully a laid-back feel. “Let’s Not Fight” balances it all out,featuring a relentless, driving beat with some real hard energy. This is the record where Decibully show their full range of songwriting skills. I’m telling you now, pick up World Travels Fast and you’ll find yourself listening to it often, trust me. xoxo …. buy it here, there’s a beautiful double vinyl LP with CD inside. Of course, you can also purchase the album download as mp3s.