Stream It From The Mountain: His Name Is Alive – Black Wings

Detroit’s His Name Is Alive - led by Warren Defever – has been churning out their experimental, genre-defiant brand of art-rock since 1986.  Their most recent album, 2016’s excellent Patterns of Light, was inspired by their performance at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland and featured their most experimental, heady and psychedelic music yet.

Black Wings was originally compiled and released as a collection of outtakes, demos, covers and sound experiments that were tied thematically to Patterns Of Light and released in conjunction as a limited CD and digital release.  Now though, Athens, GA label Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records has issued the 34-track Black Wings on a double-LP set as a stand-alone album release. 

Eccentrically eclectic and sporadic though surprisingly cohesive, the 34 tracks on Black Wings span multiple genres, lengths and ideas. Defever’s heavier prog-rock tendencies shine with a raw and chopped up cover of Rush’s “Anthem”, simply titled, “Rush”; an acoustic song snippet titled, “Les Zeppelina” that interpolates a famous Led Zeppelin riff and the 17-second long 70’s synth snippet, “Italia”.  Elsewhere, alternate takes and demo versions of Patterns Of Light songs such as the title track and the standout, “Energy Acceleration” shine new light on the writing and recording process.  This headphones-worthy opus is a world waiting to get lost in.

For more info or to order: http://www.hisnameisalive.com/ &   http://hhbtm.com/item.php?item_id=650&category_id=1

Stream Black Wings here: