Home Is In Your Head

They Say...

Review by Heather Phares, All Music Guide

Dark, disturbing, and beautiful, His Name Is Alive's Home Is in Your Head develops the deceptively simple, abstractly emotional music they introduced on Livonia. Held together by Warren Defever's artful production, its 23 songs range from jealous contemplation to spiritual concerns, from gentle folk to white noise guitar outbursts. Karin Oliver's supple voice lends itself to an array of musical and emotional settings: she's acidly sweet on "The Charmer"'s brittle taunt "Where is your head now?/I should nail it to her door/Where are your hands now?/I know what you'd use them for." On "Why People Disappear," she's pensive: "Maybe I know as much as I ever will/We've been forever." The numerous instrumentals and interludes add to the overall yearning, searching mood. "Her Eyes Were Huge Things" builds subtle strumming and Oliver's sighs into an evocative spell, while "Hope Called in Sick" crashes in with loud, wailing guitars. The group's sound collages also find more purpose here than on Livonia; the chanting children on "Put Your Finger in Your Eye" are downright unnerving, and "Spirit and Body" conjures a story of loss out of a ticking watch and just-audible snippets of conversation. With the oddly comforting finale, "Dreams Are of the Body," Home is in Your Head completes a seamless exploration of music and emotion. [The Rykodisc reissue also includes the group's hard-to-find The Dirt Eaters EP. Named for Defever's rock-oriented side project, it features the spooky, subtly dissonant cover of Rainbow's "Man on the Silver Mountain," Ivo Watts-Russell's bleak remix of "Are We Still Married?," and "The Dirt Eaters'" pastoral art folk. Added to Home Is in Your Head, it represents the band's best early work.]