Dogstar Finally Releases Album For Men Who Stare Out Hotel Windows During Rainstorms
LOS ANGELES – After years of quietly existing as “Keanu Reeves’ band” in the same way artisanal mustard exists as “the thing next to the sandwich,” Dogstar has returned with All In Now, a 12-track meditation on motorcycles, spiritual fatigue, and hunting down bad guys.
The album opens with “Math,” a song so profoundly committed to sounding thoughtful that several early listeners assumed they were being gently audited. Bret Domrose sings like a man who has seen an ocean from a balcony and needed a minute afterward. Keanu Reeves’ bass tone enters like a Volvo parking itself.
From there, the album proceeds through “This Sphere,” “All In Now,” and “Exalted,” which together form what music critics are already calling “a very expensive conversation in Silver Lake.” Every song feels less written than discovered in an abandoned warehouse where someone left a lit candle next to a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
“‘Siren’ made me pull my car over and reconsider whether I should still have LinkedIn,”“Not quit my job. Just stop participating spiritually.”
Producer Nick Launay somehow manages to make the band sound both enormous and deeply tired, which is arguably the ideal sonic texture for three men entering their sixties with perfect jawlines. The guitars arrive in waves. The drums sound like someone assembling high-end patio furniture with urgency. Keanu Reeves remains on bass the entire time, radiating the calm intensity of a monk who once killed twelve people in a nightclub.
Track six, “Punch The Sky,” is the closest the album gets to aggression. It sounds like Foo Fighters if everyone involved had recently completed a silent retreat. During the chorus, Domrose appears to threaten the heavens themselves, although in a very respectful way.
The middle stretch of the album, including “Joy,” “What Is,” and “The Whisper,” enters a dangerous zone where the listener begins sincerely wondering if Dogstar might actually be incredible. This is immediately followed by a strong urge to buy boots and a leather jacket.
By the time “Shards of Rain” arrives, the album has fully detached from observable reality. The song feels specifically engineered for driving through downtown at 2 a.m. while remembering someone named Claire. Nobody knows who Claire is. Dogstar assumes you already do.
“Shallow Easy” continues the band’s ongoing campaign against visible happiness, before the record closes with “Wing,” a song that sounds exactly like Keanu Reeves staring at the Pacific Ocean after surviving another gunfight in a foreign country.
The full tracklist for All In Now includes:
- Math
- This Sphere
- All In Now
- Exalted
- Siren
- Punch The Sky
- Joy
- What Is
- The Whisper
- Shards Of Rain
- Shallow Easy
- Wing
Industry insiders say the band recorded much of the album live, fueled primarily by black coffee, mutual respect, and the unshakable energy of three men who absolutely know where to buy Japanese denim.