Decibully

As pop-punk makes increasing inroads with the kids, it should be a sign to the elders of the genre that it's time to get out of the pool. It doesn't matter how long you've been listening to that copy of Dear You -- it's time to move on a little bit. Just look at the Get Up Kids' new quieter sound, or the way these bands will break up and form all-new groups such as the lush Milwaukee sextet Decibully.

Amid the soothing waves of pseudo-western twang and chamber pop in Decibully's sophomore album, City of Festivals, are enough references to departures and losses to trigger a hundred old memories. You'd expect nothing less from a band that features former members of both Camden and the Promise Ring, as Decibully does. Singer William Seidel's falsetto is sweet and emotional, drained of all traces of the punk urgency heard on Camden's records. But what you might not expect is that Decibully sounds like a soft-rock update of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, with half the ambition but twice the heart -- and choruses that will make you blubber like a baby. They're not trying to break your heart, just trying to reopen the old wounds.