“Clouds“
from the album You May Already Be Dreaming
2008
iTunes
Conor Oberst isn’t just a man. He’s the center of a musical galaxy. He’s at the heart of Bright Eyes. He calls the shots at his Team Love Records. His backing band’s featured more musicians than it’s reasonable to mention here, he’s spawned a side project, Desaparecidos, he’s released split albums with the likes of Son, Ambulance and Neva Dinova, and toured with just about everyone under the sun.
Omaha’s Neva Dinova is tied into the gravity of the Oberst galaxy whether it likes it or not: In addition to the One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels split with Bright Eyes in 2004, front man Jake Bellows played as part of Bright Eyes during the Cassadaga sessions.
If Neva Dinova (the name’s borrowed from Bellows’ grandma) has any qualms with the extent that its fate’s been intertwined with Oberst, You May Already Be Dreaming sure doesn’t show it. Strengthening the Americana slant of its last album, 2005’s The Hate Yourself Change, the five-piece comes off as a perfect side-piece to Bright Eyes, sharing the love for singer/songwriter folk-pop if not attempting to recreate Oberst’s magic in its own setting. Rather, it chooses for a sound stuck somewhere between the acoustic-rock paradigms nailed down by Neil Young so long ago and a middle-years Wilco, stuck between alt-country and indie-pop. It’s the perfect formula for anyone who’s followed Neva Dinova over through the Oberst connection, but a little bit predictable for anyone who’d hope the band break free of its Omaha-folk roots.
You May Already Be Dreaming plugs into amps heavy with reverb, sending its guitars scuttling between jangly pop and roots directions, as Bellows’ lazy drawl walks, slips and slides all over the roots-pop half-breed. “It’s Hard to Love You” is old-fashioned trad rock wrapped up in the band’s propriatery blend of acoustic and jangle-verb guitars. The aptly named “Tryptophan” snoozes through an arrangement big on wide-open spaces as it somehow revisits Low and Neil Young at the same time, and “Clouds,“ a roots number jazzed up with reverb and flashy guitar tones, lets the Young influences run free.
It’s hard for any band so closely intertwined with Oberst to emerge as its own act, but Neva Dinova does a noble effort of breaking free. You May Already Be Dreaming isn’t radical enough to erase its biggest claim to fame — that collaborative split it did with Oberst in ’04 — it certainly has enough of its own story to merit a listen.