Neva Dinova

by Bradley Torreano & Marisa Brown
Dreamy and sparse, delicate and moody, these are the elements that make Neva Dinova a memorable experience. Often lumped in with other groups that came along at the same time (including the Faint and Bright Eyes), the band actually started in 1993 at the height of the slowcore movement, a collaboration between guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Jake Bellows and bassist Heath Koontz. Making similarly airy and spacy music, the band tightened its sound live before a disastrous gig in Omaha shook up the lineup and essentially created the Neva Dinova that broke into the national market. Getting together with Crank! Records, the band recorded an eponymous debut and released it in the summer of 2002, and three years later The Hate Yourself Change came out. Already a big part of the tightly-knit Omaha, NE scene, Bellows appeared on Bright Eyes' 2007 album Cassadaga (Conor Oberst had even played drums with the band in an earlier incarnation) and finally signed to the city's very own Saddle Creek, Neva Dinova issued their third full-length, You May Already Be Dreaming in the spring of 2008.