His Name Is Alive

"I think people have heard R&B before - I don't think people are going to go 'Whoa, what is this?'," His Name Is Alive's Warn Defever may be right about that, but most people haven't heard R&B from this particular source. Typically more experimental, gloomy and appropriately given his label, "4AD-ish," HNIA fans might be surprised by the smooth grooves of Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth. Recorded over the last three years - in between dabbling in noise, remixes, obtuse solo records, tone poems and minimal techno - this follow-up to HNIA's Ft. Lake prominently features the beautiful vocals of the enchantingly named Lovetta Pippen. "It's better than our other records," Warn claims. "I tried harder. It's a little more sophisticated, a little more metropolitan." Sophisticated, maybe, but certainly not slick. Musically raw (Pippen's vocals are the smoothest element here), Defever claims "the songs were recorded the first time we ever played them - while they were being written. It's more like a demo," he pauses. "It's sad but true." Whatever the effort Defever put into it, the result is another interesting move in his fascinating career, one that shuffles from sound to style to genre to experiment. "Whether it's R&B or whatever, who cares about that?" he muses. "It's the feel and the sound."