Dinosaur Bones

In late 2012, Toronto’s Dinosaur Bones headed south to Texas to record their sophomore album, Shaky Dream, with producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, The Walkmen, Explosions In The Sky). Shaky Dream follows My Divider, a debut which earned the Toronto five-piece critical praise, but one which, in many ways, embarked the band in a new direction.

“The idea was to pull ourselves out of our detached day-to-day lives and put ourselves in a collective mindset to try and pin down this fuzzy dream of a second record,” says frontman Ben Fox. Turns out recording the album was both fuzzy and dreamlike – and not always in comfortable ways. Congleton opened up the band’s songs and sounds, turning would-be B-sides into bona fide album cuts. Fox admits the process was new, uncomfortable, and rewarding – all at once.

“We would take songs we didn’t know what to do with and flip them upside down, poke at them, knowing there was something in there we all believed in. It can take way less than you’d think to flip your whole perspective.”

This, Fox says, is explicitly what the band hoped for with their decision to literally and figuratively leave behind their comfort zone.

“We were interested in the idea of pushing in multiple directions on one record. We didn’t want to just lock into one mode for forty minutes, with one palate of sounds and one mood to convey. We wanted to make an album where our songwriting instincts define our identity.”

The result is a complex record thematically steeped in self-reflection and the yearning for honest communication, projected through a blend of dark pop, bombastic hooks, and flourishing rhythmic drone. It isn’t where the band had been before. It’s where they’re going, and where they are.

In late 2012, Toronto’s Dinosaur Bones headed south to Texas to record their sophomore album, Shaky Dream, with producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, The Walkmen, Explosions In The Sky). Shaky Dream follows My Divider, a debut which earned the Toronto five-piece critical praise, but one which, in many ways, embarked the band in a new direction.

“The idea was to pull ourselves out of our detached day-to-day lives and put ourselves in a collective mindset to try and pin down this fuzzy dream of a second record,” says frontman Ben Fox. Turns out recording the album was both fuzzy and dreamlike – and not always in comfortable ways. Congleton opened up the band’s songs and sounds, turning would-be B-sides into bona fide album cuts. Fox admits the process was new, uncomfortable, and rewarding – all at once.

“We would take songs we didn’t know what to do with and flip them upside down, poke at them, knowing there was something in there we all believed in. It can take way less than you’d think to flip your whole perspective.”

This, Fox says, is explicitly what the band hoped for with their decision to literally and figuratively leave behind their comfort zone.

“We were interested in the idea of pushing in multiple directions on one record. We didn’t want to just lock into one mode for forty minutes, with one palate of sounds and one mood to convey. We wanted to make an album where our songwriting instincts define our identity.”

The result is a complex record thematically steeped in self-reflection and the yearning for honest communication, projected through a blend of dark pop, bombastic hooks, and flourishing rhythmic drone. It isn’t where the band had been before. It’s where they’re going, and where they are.

Members

• Josh Byrne
• Dave Wickland
• Ben Fox
• Branko Scekic
• Lucas Fredette