His Name Is Alive

Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth (4AD)
by Tim Den

Mastermind/recording freak Warn Defever is back with his His Name Is Alive‘s latest creation, and this time he has really thrown us for a loop. Whereas His Name Is Alive was a noodly/spacey rock project in the past, Defever has made a full-blown jazzy r&b album with the help of his new found personal love, a Harlem choir girl by the name of Lovetta Pippen. Sound fucked? Well, the finished product is anything but. It’s what r&b and jazz should’ve culminated into: Sultry, urban, sexy, equipped with a booming backbeat but without the cheesy accessories that fakes like Puff Daddy exploit. Sometimes Defever’s more rock-oriented ballads sound completely wasted by Pippen’s “I’m a r&b singer so I have no clue how to sing a regular pop song” imagination (as on “Are We Still Married”), but most of the time, the sparse-yet-intimate bassiness just makes you wanna get in the sack. Hey, it sure beats his barely-listenable noise projects.
(www.4ad.com)