Dogstar - All In Now

Dogstar are back, and this time they mean business. All In Now is the fourth studio album from the Los Angeles trio of bassist Keanu Reeves, guitarist and vocalist Bret Domrose, and drummer Robert Mailhouse, and it is the sound of a band who have fully arrived. As Domrose puts it, their 2023 comeback record Somewhere Between the Power Lines and Palm Trees was their ticket into the party. All In Now is them showing up ready to own the room.

Produced by Nick Launay, whose credits include IDLES, Amyl and the Sniffers, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the album is heavier, more urgent, and more confident than anything Dogstar have made before. Layered guitar riffs and a driving bass presence, sharpened by two years of relentless touring, push the band into taut, muscular alt-rock territory that draws comparisons to Queens of the Stone Age and earns every one of them. Rolling Stone has praised Dogstar's sleek, post-grunge alt-rock, and All In Now is the record that fully delivers on that promise across 12 tracks.

"We couldn't wait," Reeves has said of returning to the studio. "For me the attitude was, let's work hard and let's go." That energy runs through the album from the head-whacking title track opener through to the atmospheric closer "Wing." This is a band leaning in completely, and the result is easily their strongest work to date.