Butterflies

The Desolation Bells are a pretty good band from Boston, Massachusetts. They have synthesized (without using synthesizers) an amalgam of classic rock, indie rock and brit pop influences into the confection which you can listen to samples here. A pop album, er CD, er a collectioin of mp3s, known as “What is your trajectory?”

“What is your trajectory?” is definitely a question the band asks themselves, but they also ask the listener the same question? And with wry aplomb, you’d probably get a different answer on any given day as to what their trajectory actually is. However, from listening to this disc, one can immediately hear that part of their raison d’etre is to rock out. Delving heavily into such classic rock influences as Love, the Who, the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton. The band also embraces less Mesozoic influences such as Blur, Oasis and that whole league…as well as the obvious American indie influences that most Boston rockers have assimilated by diffusion through the permeable membrane that is college radio which blankets this town.

But even tho’ the band cops riffs and stylings from their antecedents, they are a wholly unique entity in today’s rock scene! One would be hard pressed to find a band today or yesteryear that they resemble…and herein lies the strength of this band…

Desolation Bells was formed by Mike Hibarger (Takers, Tulips) and Frank Butkus (Room 22, the Freeways) in late 2004. And after scouring craigslist, they were finally able to recruit Shawn Hudson to back them up on drums. After playing a handful of shows at the Abbey, the Middle East, and TT the Bears the D-Bells embarked on making this recording. They decided to take some time off from gigging to perfect this recording, working around the busy schedules of Black Helicopter and Mission of Burma; as this was tracked at Burma/Black Helicopter practice space cum studio: Analogue Divide located in Allston.

While recording, the band asked longtime friend Seana Carmody (Swirlies, Syrup USA) to add her dreamy vocals to a couple of tracks, which now lead off “Trajectory”. The ebullient, “She’s Optimistic” is likely to be one of the album’s standout tracks.

They also enlisted Carrie Prior, a novice to rock singing, but an excellent choral vocalist, and the results of her first outing are featured on “Every Little Word”, a sad-sack ballad of resolve and regret. The band also invited back fill-in members, Mark Dantini (the surreptitious Dark Martini) and Chris Keene (Irreverends, Takers) to help out. Chris, a temporary help on drums, moved behind the board, and engineered the basics. And Mark provided some fantastic guitar solos which tangle and wrestle with Mike’s playing in an ecstatic (if not overwrought sorta) way.

After the basics and overdubs were complete, the band took the 2” masters across town and dumped them into Pro-Tools with Paul Kolderie at Camp St (aka the old Fort Apache). Paul was really excited to work with us, and kept telling us that “Leopard Spots” was the hit. We shall see. We enjoyed working with him, he is a very talented engineer, with an excellent ear and his credentials could fill up this bio, having produced the likes of Radiohead, Hole, and many many others.

We hope that you enjoy listening to “What is your Trajectory?” We enjoyed making this album. We look forward to making the next one and playing in clubs again.