Neva Dinova drummer Roger Lewis assumed that the series of delays and disasters that marred the completion of the band's just-released album, You May Already Be Dreaming, was an act of God.

"I began thinking this record should not be made," he said from the darkened confines of The Underwood Bar, surrounded by his band mates and a table filled with ashtrays and quart-sized bottles of Miller Lite. "There had to be a reason this was happening. But somehow we fought through it. It got to a point where we believed in what we were doing and nothing was going to stop us."

Lewis and bandmates, frontman/guitarist Jake Bellows, bassist Heath Koontz, and guitarists Tim Haes and Mike Kratky, have seen Neva Dinova rise, than almost drown in an ocean of booze and flood waters, only to somehow break to the surface and make it to shore.

Their story began 15 years ago when Koontz and Bellows formed Neva Dinova as a basement project launched at a self-described "disastrous gig" at Grandmother's restaurant on 84th and L. More disastrous gigs followed, along with even more inspired performances, culminating in an album's worth of songs that would become Neva Dinova's self-released debut in 2001.

The album caught the attention of Jeff Matlow at Crank! Records, a then-respectable indie label whose stable included Mineral, The Gloria Record, Sunday's Best, even a pre-Saddle Creek release by Cursive. Neva would sign a two-record deal with Crank! that they would live to regret.

"At the time, those guys went to bat for us when no one else would touch us, and they lost money on us," Bellows said. "They were struggling, but they went out on a limb for us anyway."