Brother/Sister duo Edward and Alex Bell along with drummer Cody Jako joined forces in Iowa City to “create a musical style they had never ventured in before. The songs are led by guitarist and lyricist Cody Janko, as he creates characters that experience tales of love, hate, defeat, and conquest, all while keeping an optimistic view on life. The stories are then ornamented by multi-instrumentalist Edward Bell’s use of bass, keyboard, or trumpet. Drummer and percussionist Alex Bell rounds out the sound by providing a backbone via her full drum kit, hand drums, or toned percussion.”

It seems they have managed to put out a full length record and the up-coming new EP, “Mammals Amongst Us” – a reverb/echo drenched voyage into the sounds that powered many of the college alternative brit punk pop greats that drove the scene in the ’80’s.

Jako’s stories make for great lyrics dealing with the angsts of youth in catchy arrangments with small-stage-big-act-indy-style-fun bouncing horns and keys, cool guitars and catchy vocal bits and riffs. with all the thought-out and practice parts, the fun “yeah that’s it! do it now!” energy is right there in the record!

These are some talented musicians, with a great style, and I have to agree about the energy they bring:

It becomes very apparent in the first few moments of their performance, that All Dogs Invited has no shame in combining their soft spoken demeanor with a sincere enthusiasm to create their own take on contemporary Indie Rock. The group pushes to mix pop hooks with the honest ambitions of rock, while sustaining the musicianship they have worked so many years to acquire. The chemistry between the trio is strong, as they have spent the better part of a decade creating music together in the Iowa City, IA area.

With all the cool things mentioned above, though, I just had a real hard time getting into this one. It was little things, like the fun, loose timing that’s just a bit too loose in the guitar solo, or the vocals that aren’t meant to be perfect but are just  a bit too far off the pitch to be pleasing at a couple points, and a static keyboard part that’s just a bit too loud and covers the vocal. There were also points when the effects buried the vocal in such a way that my worn old ears couldn’t make out the words.

These few picks don’t have to spoil this record! It doesn’t officially drop ’till March, and that’s plenty of time to fix a few points before any hard copies have to be printed. I hope they take the time and wind up with what is now an ok sophomore effort into a really good indie-punk-pop record!