Customer Reviews

Home Is in Your Head

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Warren Defever called HOME IS IN YOUR HEAD "28 one-minute songs about how I got over a difficult adolescence." Whatever its inspiration is, HIIYH is an hour-long exploration of madness. Including a three-track sequence called "Song of Schizoprenia," this album describes the emotional ruin of unrequited love, the wearing tendencies and topor of existence, and unbearable loneliness. HIIYH is a black and depressing record that can cause any listener's thoughts to turn downwards.

But it's also a brilliant album. Warren Defever is admired by such bands as Cornershop and the High Llamas, and by the always quirky Beck, because he is such an innovative and careful songwriter. Every song on HIIYH seems finely worked to produce its mood, even if it has an atmosphere of spontaneity, like the title track and "Mescalina." There are literally no weak songs on this album because all tracks build up to one unified whole, although some work fine on their own.

HIIYH is truly one of the best records I have ever listened to and over the years it has remained a treasured part of my collection of albums.

This is the album that introduced me to HNIA. At that time, I hadn't heard the more ethereal "Livonia", but I read a review of "Home is in Your Head" that made it sound really interesting...and they were right! The album mixes an amazing variety of styles, textures, and tones over the course of the disc. Each new track is a surprise the first time you hear it, and the album is interesting each time you revisit it. And yes, the last track is supposed to end that way...the tape ran out as they were recording it, and they left it like that.

wow. i remember first hearing this album years and years ago and just being in awe of the beautiful and endlessly creative music. there are alot of songs on this album, but each one is almost like a small sketch of an idea. drifting in and out of one another, some are soft and gentle, and others are a bit more disturbing and dark. the undeniable beauty of songs like "Why People Disappear", "Sitting Still Moving...", and "Are We Still Married?" never fail to move me. this is an album full of haunting, ghostly, strange, and alluring music; teetering close to the edge of being new age or pop...but then they toss out a Rainbow cover song (done exceptionally well, i might add) and the mystery of this band just continues to develop as it unravels. certainly recomended for fan of Cocteau Twins, Swallow, or Slowdive.

My favorite track on this release is "The Well" . A sensitive, elegantly-plucked acoustic guitar passage, playing what to my untrained ears sounds like an ascending scale, provides the counterpoint for warm, heartfelt female vocals sung in a Romance language (perhaps Italian?) that nevertheless conveys a sense of incredible loss and wistfulness. To me this encapsulates the entire essence of "Home Is In Your Head", the marriage between the dark, introspective lyrics aching for emotional states that may be difficult or impossible to recover and the guitar-driven, intricately formulated, often nostalgic soundscapes they are embedded within. Not even a cover of Rainbow's "Man On The Silver Mountain" escapes this treatment; it is stripped entirely free of its roots in heavy metal and presentation as an ode of self-triumph to be re-worked as a meditative fugue on the delusive nature of self-grandeur. Driven by female vocalist(s),and what appears to sound like the simple accompianament of nylon guitar strings plucked in a deliberative fashion by Warren DeFever through the chord changes of that track, the chorus itself is reduced to a plaintive, spoken-word query of apprehensive affirmation.

Other standout tracks on this CD include "Love's A Fish Eye", "Are You Comin' Down This Weekend" , "Are We Still Married?", "Very Bad A Bitter Hand", "Dreams Are of the Body", "Chances Are We Are Mad", and "We Hold the Land In Great Esteem".

HNIA would abandon this quasi-gothic/proto-darkwave cut-up approach with the release of their third CD, "Mouth by Mouth". While others have seen this release (and their first, "Livonia")as a slightly derivative pastiche of the more atmospheric bands comprising the 4AD roster, I would have to strongly disagree. While owing much to the production values of John Fryer, these tracks were being cut and re-cut while DeFever was in his formative teenage years, and show astounding polish. For me, these releases ARE His Name Is Alive. For those of you familiar with only their later work, give this release and its predecessor a chance to reveal another side of a prolific artist.

"Home Is In Your Head" is one of the few HNIA albums to sound like the one that came before it--probably because it was mostly made up of songs that Warren Defever recorded during the same time period as "Livonia." Once again, This Mortal Coil's Ivo Watts-Russell and John Fryer mixed it into something coherent.

But "Home Is In Your Head" is far from a "Livonia" clone or rehash. Whereas "Livonia" featured beautiful gothic folk songs with a dash here and there of new wave and heavy metal guitar heroics, interspersed with moody instrumentals, "Home Is In Your Head" refines the concept further. The songs are more direct, with stronger lyrics and hooks, and the instrumentals are shorter, but also more direct and more evocative.

It all adds up to a beautiful collage of mood and feeling. While individual songs may not hold up, especially the more brief instrumentals, the album as a whole is a masterwork of musical texture.

As a side note, it appears that 4AD's most recent CD issue includes the "Dirt Eaters" EP, as did Rykodisc's initial USA release of the album. While "The Dirt Eaters" is a fine record on its own, it really doesn't go well with "Home Is In Your Head," save for the included altnerate version of "Are We Still Married?". It's a more song-oriented effort, hinting at the direction that HNIA would take over the next few records. "Home Is In Your Head" really should end as it did on the original vinyl--with the tape running out on its most upbeat song!

i'm soo impressed when i listened to HNIA introduced by a netfreind,their created-from-their-own-planet music strikes my heart since then,HOME IS IN YR HEAD is the best dun buy thier latest album if u're new to HNIA

His Name Is Alive is music unlike other music. Sure there are many alternatives available, if you like rap - you like rap, it's available; hardcore metal, it's available; teenybopPOP, it's available; country, it's out there; But when it comes to beautifully poetic and ridiculously intelligent&wacky lyrics, which make you think twice or thrice, and music that attacks not only your ears but your soul and switches from melodicaly almost spiritually classic to skreeching thumping slices of distortion and heavy percussion, accompanied by vocals which i've heard reffered to as HeavenlyDimAndFrighteninglyGlowing; where is it to be found but right here in a little package labeled HisNameIsAlive - HomeIsInYourHead Buy it because they told you not to!!!

This is a more listenable effort than the debut album, "Livonia"
but still should barely be classifiable as "music"...
It's more like ethereal sounda art, dreamscapes, spoken word with acoustic guitar wafting in and out over atmospheric distortion.
Karin's voice sounds more confident than "Livonia", but still a little to trite for my taste. I mean, "this Mortal Coil" had a little more soul...

NOT FOR BEGINNERS IMHO...
I'd recommend
"Mouth by Mouth"
"Stars on ESP"
or
"Ft Lake"

Thank you!