His Name Is Alive

The ever-changing project of multi-instrumentalist/producer Warren Defever, His Name Is Alive have explored a veritable record store's worth of music during their decades-spanning career. They helped define the sound of the arty indie label 4AD with the experimental dream pop of 1991's Home Is in Your Head and 1993's Mouth by Mouth, surveyed Beach Boys-tinged pop on 1996's Stars on ESP, and channeled gospel and R&B on 2001's Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth. They entered a particularly creative period in the 2010s, combining prog and metal with ethereal vocals on the concept albums Tecuciztecatl (2014) and Patterns of Light (2016). Defever revisited the project's early years with the ambient recordings collected on 2021's A Silver Thread: Home Recordings 1979-1990 and 2024's How Ghosts Affect Relationships: 1990-1993, a deep dive into their first three albums.