Neva Dinova - You May Already Be Dreaming: A Review

With the first half of 2008 already behind us year end lists may already be starting. Critics love their lists, and if personal experience serves, attempting to review an entire year in music come December is quite the difficult endeavor. So, I've recently been going back through some of 2008's releases thus far and I stumbled across Neva Dinova's You May Already Be Dreaming.

It's the band's third album and definitely their most accomplished. What's interesting is that the title of the album made me think of the final scene in the film Waking Life. It is here that the film's protagonist recalls a theory he once heard - namely that after dying the human brain is said to continue functioning for a few hours and that if we dream during those we could conceivably live an entire other life - and he begins to wonder if he is currently in the middle of that dream. Now, if this dream were to be soundtracked I imagine it would sound something like the comfortable, weary folk/country plod of Neva Dinova. Their music exudes a sense of happiness that comes at the end of some long journey or some difficult task. Sure you mind and body are taxed, but you know you are done. A sense of accomplishment hangs heavier than a sense of fatigue. It is a strange moment of comfort, and Neva Dinova have mined it perfectly with songs that manage to sound both intimate and longing, completely at home and yet slightly uneasy.

The album's first three tracks, "Love from Below," "Will the Ladies Send You Flowers," and "Clouds," are all lovely and pacing takes on the country cannon, full of slowly punching beats, crying guitar leads, and whisper-laced vocals that sound almost opiated. It's the albums fourth track, "Supercomputer," where things pick up for the first time with a mid-tempo romp that features constant percussive vocals that recall the protest songs of Bob Dylan.

Of course this a dream world we are inhabiting and those sort of nightmare-like barn-burners are few and far between. Perhaps that's why follow up "Tryptophan," you know the chemical in turkey that is said to make people tired, takes the band back to an easy groove that is minimalist on all accounts except its wonderful vocal harmonies.

Other songs like "She's a Ghost" and "Funeral Home" follow suit with swaying laments full of warm hollow-body guitar, lazy stick-work, and hushed vocal deliveries. Like their predecessors these tracks are comfort like good whiskey on a winter day, and seem to emote a dream-like aura. Meanwhile other tracks like "Squirrels" and "What you Want" are much more excited sounding. The former is bouncy folk-pop ditty sure to please fans of Okkervil River's up-tempo work, while the latter busts out a big rock riff, a driving drum beat, and a full-on barnstorming chorus.

It's interesting that this is Neva Dinova's first album for Saddle Creek, and also their album that most sounds like it belongs on Saddle Creek. Like artists such as Bright Eyes and The Good Life, Neva Dinova tap into traditional Americana and use it to create melancholy-tinged ballads, hushed pieces of pop, and loud, stomping expressions of joy and anger. And, if you like what you hear, you are in luck as the album consists of fourteen tracks, and plays out for over 40 minutes, unlike many "rock" records that are released these days.