The Chicago band Disappears was on a roll, having just finished their third album in two years last summer when they faced up to the inevitable: Drummer, producer and cofounding member Graeme Gibson was ready to move on.

    Gibson was also playing with the folk-rock band The Fruit Bats, originally from Chicago but now based in the Pacific Northwest, where it is signed to Sub Pop Records. Meanwhile, Disappears had “Guider” (Kranky) ready to release, an album that refines the band’s signature elements -- trance-like rhythms and dense, reverb-soaked guitar – and also expands them, with the 16-minute drone-rock epic “Revisiting.”

    The band was in a great place musically, but Gibson’s departure cast some doubt on its future.

    “We all saw it coming,” Disappears singer-guitarist Brian Case says. “The Fruit Bats were touring a lot, and musically that’s where Graeme’s head is at. He wanted to move to Portland to be closer to them. Our band started through friendship and last year we all sat down with him and told him it’s OK if he wanted to go. It was hard for all of us. He’s an awesome drummer, engineer and producer. He was really important to the development of this band. And we were concerned about what was going to happen without him. But I think we found a pretty decent replacement.”

Chicago rock band Disappears has a bad news/great news situation. Their drummer Graeme Gibson is departing because he’s moving out of town. But his fill-in will be – get this -- Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley.

That’s according to the quartet’s Web site, which announced Thursday that Shelley “will be filling in for as long as he is able or wants to.”

Shelley has been Sonic Youth’s reliably stout drummer for more than two decades, but the band is between projects. The down time enabled Shelley to tour this year with Neu’s Michael Rother as part of the group Hallogallo 2010. Shelley was in the drummer’s chair when Hallogallo headlined last month at Lincoln Hall, with Disappears playing an impressive opening set. Disappears’ driving, droning guitar rock sure sounds like a nice fit for Shelley’s rhythmic attack.

Next chance to see Disappears with their “fill-in” drummer will be Feb. 4 at the Empty Bottle. They’ll be celebrating the release of their second album, “Guider,” following up their excellent 2010 release, “Lux.”

greg@gregkot.com