About
It’s a new chapter in the history of Neva Dinova. Although the band are beloved by many, they’ve never had the same name recognition as their Omaha-bred peers and collaborators like Bright Eyes and Cursive. However that’s likely to change with the band’s reinvigorating new full-length Canary, which features a new lineup, fresh perspective and a sound that’s more urgent than anything they’ve created in the past. While there was talk of reactivating Neva Dinova pre-pandemic, the catalyst ended up being an offer from Cursive to support them on tour last year in support of the 20th anniversary of their landmark album Domestica.
Newly energized, songwriter/guitarist/singer Jake Bellows immediately started sending demos to longtime drummer Roger L. Lewis and just-recruited bassist Megan Siebe, and they began woodshedding new songs alongside fan favorites like “Clouds” and “Yellow Datsun.” The latest incarnation of Neva Dinova was born. After an East Coast run, the band returned to Omaha to record Canary at Make Believe Studios. “I’m trying to cover a lot more space in the band now because there’s only one guitar, so I write a little differently in order to cover that space.” (An understatement considering the previous lineups of the band featured three guitarists.) The result is an album that is more focused while still allowing for the occasional Neil Young-inspired guitar solo or unexpected sonic flourish. While previous Neva Dinova albums such as 2008’s You May Already Be Dreaming were labored on in the studio, the songs on Canary were honed on the road allowing for a largely live recording session that captures the visceral energy of the band.
From the fuzzed-out grandeur of “Edge of Something” that kicks off the record through the electronica/hip-hop accents on album closer “I Can See Further Now,” the album sees Neva Dinova stepping out sonically and condensing their songs in powerful blasts of focused energy. As always, the unifying ingredient is Bellows’s distinctive baritone voice as he croons about existential dread, alienation, and hypocrisy – though offset with moments of levity and hopefulness. “Love and Kindness” is a reference to the ongoing war in Gaza while “Something To Lose” was inspired by the loss of Bellows’s beloved dog, Dragon. “That song is about the idea that maybe you’d rather never love anybody or anything because it’s just another thing to lose, and that really resonated with me at the time,” he says of the latter track.
“When you’re involved in the arts there’s some expectation for you to be smart or know stuff and I don’t want to be that poser anymore,” he explains. There’s a liberation in that lack of pretense—and even when Bellows is musing about his own limitations in “Near Me,” there’s a beauty in the imperfections: The subtle buzzing of the amp, the finger noise on the strings and Bellows’s voice rising above all of it in a way that’s distinctly Neva Dinova.
Canary is a raw and unfiltered glimpse of Bellows’s psyche and an electrifying batch of songs — unpretentious, empathetic, weathered, and wizened. It also marks a second act for one of indie rock’s most underrated acts.
