[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hisnameisalivepress_1.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350: Pictured: Current frontwoman Andrea Morici and guitarist Warren Defever. Not pictured: [[RevolvingDoorBand Everyone else]].]]
[floatboxright:
Influences:
* Music/TheBeachBoys, Harold Budd, Music/CocteauTwins, Music/ThisMortalCoil, Music/ThinLizzy, Music/{{Prince}}, Music/BigStar, Music/MichaelJackson, Music/ElvisPresley, Music/JimiHendrix, Marion Brown, Music/PatBenatar, Music/MottTheHoople, Music/MuddyWaters, Masahiko Satoh, Music/TheYardbirds, Music/BillySquier, Dave Edmunds, Graham Parker and the Rumour, Music/{{The Rolling Stones|Band}}, Music/TheBeatles, ZONA, John Luther Adams, Z.M. Dagar, Eberhard Weber
]

His Name is Alive are a rather eccentric experimental rock project from Livonia, Michigan, currently based in UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}}. Founded in 1990 by guitarist, composer, and sole constant member Warren Defever, the band is fond of GenreRoulette, having recorded songs ranging from DreamPop, alternative rock, funk, prog rock, and BaroquePop to experimental noise and gothic ambient compositions. The band was originally signed to Creator/FourADRecords, under whom they released a string of critically acclaimed records throughout TheNineties, but were dropped by the label in the early 2000's after failing to meet sales expectations. After this, the band went defunct until 2006, when Defever revived the project with a new lineup. Since then, the band has steadily released new records and shows no signs of slowing down.

Across multiple decades and lineups, His Name is Alive have released over 100 recordings, many of them extremely limited edition tapes or [=CD-Rs=]. All of their post-reformation music can be found on their [[https://hisnameisalive.bandcamp.com/ Bandcamp page]]. Their 4AD material is available on most streaming services, as well as scattered across [=YouTube=]. Below is a list of their full length albums.

Albums:
* ''Livonia'' (1990)
* ''Home is in Your Head'' (1991)
* ''Mouth by Mouth'' (1993)
* ''Stars on ESP'' (1996)
* ''Ft. Lake'' (1998)
* ''Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth'' (2001)
* ''Last Night'' (2002)
* ''Detrola'' (2006)
* ''XMMER'' (2007)
* ''The Eclipse'' (2010)
* ''Silver Family'' (2012)
* ''Silver Dragon'' (2012)
* ''Tecuciztecatl'' (2014)
* ''Patterns of Light'' (2016)
* ''All the Mirrors in the House''[[labelnote:*]]A compilation of unreleased instrumentals from the band's early days[[/labelnote]] (2019)
* ''Return to Never'' (sequel to ''All the Mirrors...'', 2020)
* ''Hope is a Candle'' (sequel to ''Return to Never'', 2021)

!!Tropes displayed by His Name is Alive:
* AlbumIntroTrack: "Are You Coming Down This Weekend" for ''Home is In Your Head'', "Deep" for ''Last Night'', "Jixi" for ''The Eclipse''.
* AlbumTitleDrop: Almost, but not quite. "Lip" features the line "We sing '''mouth to mouth'''".
* AlwaysFemale: All of the band's half-dozen or so vocalists have been women. There's a single instance of male lead vocals, "Electrical Powers (Turn Me On)" from ''Ft. Lake'', as well as faint male backing vocals in a few other tracks, but this is very rare.
* ArcWords:
** The phrase "Spirit needs a spirit tool" first showed up in "Drink, Dress and Ink" on ''Mouth by Mouth'' and later became the basis of a full song on ''Ft. Lake''.
** "This World is Not My Home" is pretty much on Arc Song for ''Stars on ESP'', being played three different times on the album as well as once before the opening track. ''Home is Your Head'' has an Arc Sound Effect in the form of a ticking clock that shows up repeatedly throughout the album.
* AuthorAppeal: Warren likes writing songs about dreams, lakes, ghosts, and lost innocence. Recently it seems he's become obsessed with the idea of mirrors, light, and reflection as well.
* BilingualBonus: "My Feathers Needed Cleaning" features lyrics in what seems to be a Native American language.
* BoleroEffect: The EpicInstrumentalOpener for "The Examination" uses this, starting out with only synths and then adding a new instrument each measure until the full band is present.
* BookEnds: ''Stars on ESP'' starts with a snippet of "Last One", which is the final song on the album.
** The first and last songs on ''XMMER'' feature the exact same lyrics set to completely different arrangements.
* BreatherEpisode: "Dragon Down", a gentle acoustic folk song on the hard rocking ''Patterns of Light''.
* BrokenRecord: Used frequently on their earlier, spookier material.
** "As We Could Ever" opens with a loop of Karin Oliver saying what sounds like "How do you, how do you, how do you".
** "Put Your Finger in Your Eye" has a sample of a child repeating the titular phrase.
* CainAndAbel: The protagonist's twin children in ''Tecuciztecatl'' are already this in their ''womb''.
* CallBack: "The Cup", the closing track on ''Tecuciztecatl'', features the tolling bell and string melody from the end of "Hold on To Your Half".
* CallForward: At the end of "As We Could Ever" on ''Livonia'', the line "Cut, bleeding, and sad" from "How Ghosts Affect Relationships" can be heard whispered ''very'' quietly.
* ConceptAlbum:
** ''Tecuciztecatl'' is a RockOpera about a woman pregnant with twins, one good, one evil, who must enlist the assistance of a demon hunting librarian to save her soul.
--> '''Bandcamp description:''' The rock opera is imagined vaguely in the shape of a 1969 Hammer horror film: bloody, British, gothic, sexy vampires, etc., and the songs are written from the perspective of five characters, the mother, the doctor, the twins and the librarian whose side hustle is demon hunting. The story begins with a young woman getting an ultrasound who discovers she's pregnant with twins. Realizing something is going terribly wrong, "I think I'm missing something on the inside," she visits a local library for research. The librarian instructs the woman on how to kill the demon baby without harming the other twin, and together they carry out the various rituals necessary. Eventually one baby is born.
** ''Patterns of Light'' is a series of songs dedicated to the Large Hadron Collider.
** ''Stars on ESP'' is a much looser example, but it seems to have a CentralTheme of nostalgia, and is structured as a collection of singles from the ESP-Disk record label that the listener is hearing on the radio.
* CoverAlbum: ''Sweet Earth Flower''.
* CoverVersion: They've covered "Blue Moon" by Big Star and "Man on the Silver Mountain" by Rainbow, as well as a series of songs by Marion Brown for the album ''Sweet Earth Flower''. "I Can See a Lot of Light in You" is a very loose cover of "The Dress Looks Nice on You" by Music/SufjanStevens.
* CreatorProvincialism: They're heavily inspired by the atmosphere of rural Michigan, where Warren Defever has spent most of his life.
* CreepyCircusMusic: Several songs on ''Home Is In Your Head'' feature a warped carnival music sample.
* DarkReprise: "Young Blood" was a pretty dark song to begin with, but "Come to Me" sets its lyrics over a surreal and noisy soundscape consisting of marching drums and cacophonous horns.
* DeadpanSnarker: Warren Defever often comes across as one in interviews.
* DemonicPossession: "Caroline's Supposed Demon" seems to be about this.
* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: ''Stars on ESP'' titles its songs as if the album is an archive of singles. Thus, each song is listed with its full title, and then a shortened form of its title (e.g. "Dub Love Letter/Letter"). This means that songs that already have short names simply have their title listed twice (e.g. "Movie/Movie").
* DerangedAnimation: The music videos for "Are We Still Married" and "Can't Go Wrong Without You" are both done with unnerving stop-motion animation by the Brothers Quay.
* DestructiveRomance: Multiple songs on ''Home is in Your Head'' seem to be about this.
* DiscoDan: Warren Defever was apparently a musical version of this when he started the band. By his account, his father refused to listen to anything made after TheFifties, and since they lived in an isolated area of Michigan he didn't have much exposure to anything else until he became a teenager. He genuinely thought he was being rebellious by listening to Music/ElvisPresley and rockabilly. This could explain the {{Retraux}} nature of much of the band's work.
* DoubleEntendre: The line "Miracle came and fell asleep" at the end of "In My Dream (Sometimes Screw)", which carries a fairly obvious sexual meaning.
* DownerEnding: ''Tecuciztecatl'' ends with the implication that the evil twin was able to successfully subvert the librarian's ritual so that the good twin is killed in his place, all without any of the other characters knowing.
* DreadfulMusician: Warren Defever was apparently one of these for the band's first few demos, but improved sufficiently for Ivo Watts-Russell to sign them to 4AD.
* DroneOfDread:
** The ''Dirt Eaters'' version of "Are We Still Married" has an undercurrent of droning guitar feedback in the background.
** "Darker Than Blue" has a low droning tone constantly playing beneath the instruments, making what would ordinarily be a pretty guitar-and-strings ballad into a subtly twisted and depressing song.
* DualityMotif: On ''Tecuciztecatl'', representing the twin siblings who are the focus of the album.
* EarlyBirdCameo: Before taking over as lead vocalist on ''Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth'', Lovetta Pippen first appeared as a guest vocalist on "Last One/Last One" on ''Stars on ESP''.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Though it wouldn't be released until years later, Defever's earliest work under the name His Name is Alive was lo-fi instrumental field recordings he spliced together by himself in a basement, a far cry from the GenreBusting female-fronted RevolvingDoorBand the project would become.
* EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: Both Karin Oliver, the band's first vocalist, and Andrea Morici, their current vocalist, look like this.
* EitherOrTitle: All of the songs on ''Stars on ESP'' (except "Universal Frequencies" for some reason) and ''Ft. Lake'', as well as half the songs on ''Detrola''.
* EpicInstrumentalOpener: Unusually for this band, "The Examination" has one that lasts about 4 minutes.
* EpicRocking: They've been known to do this from time to time. Their longest song is the uncut version of "Wish I Had a Wishing Ring", with a runtime of 17:17. Other songs include "Last Night" (8:11), "Someday My Prince Will Come" (11:12), "Train" (7:20), "Send Me a Dragonfly" (14:16), "The Examination" (9:08 for standard edition and 13:11 for CD, where [[SiameseTwinSongs it's merged]] with "Hold On To Your Half"), "The Eclipse" (11:00), and "Silver Arc Curving in the Magnetic Field" (8:11). In addition, ''Love Can't Buy Happiness'' contains a demo version of "Are We Still Married" that runs for a little over 10 minutes.
* EroticDream: "In My Dream (Sometimes Screw)", through use of DoubleEntendre.
--> ''"In my dream it's beautiful''\\
''We go down at the same time''\\
''It's so beautiful''\\
''It's like a 6, it's like a 9''"
* EtherealChoir: Often used, especially on their first two albums with 4AD.
* FaceOnTheCover: Rather atypically, ''All the Mirrors in the House'' has a picture of Warren Defever as a teenager, presumably from around the same time that the album was recorded.
* FadingIntoTheNextSong: On their first four albums, most of the songs do this.
* ForDoomTheBellTolls: One shows up at the end of "Hold On to Your Half". It's reprised at the beginning of the final track on the album.
* GenderBlenderName: Andrea Morici is also known as Andy FM.
* GenreRoulette: This band never stays in one place for long. Their early albums rarely even kept a consistent sound between individual ''songs'', with ''Mouth by Mouth'' in particular feeling somewhat like a mixtape. More recent albums tend to maintain cohesive sounds, but each album is still a NewSoundAlbum.
* GenreThrowback: ''Tecuciztecatl'' is one to the prog concept albums of TheSeventies, with a story recalling old Film/HammerHorror films, while ''Patterns of Light'' is one to hard rock and space rock bands from the same era. ''Stars on ESP'' is one to pop and rock bands from TheSixties, in particular Music/TheBeachBoys.
* AGoodNameForARockBand: The band's name comes from some history class notes about UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln that Defever read in high school.
* {{Gorn}}: The lyrics to "Ear" describe Vincent van Gogh cutting his own ear off with a weird amount of detail.
--> ''"Started high at the back''\\
''Hacking downwards fast''\\
''Left the upper ear attached''\\
''An ugly fleshy flap"''
* GriefSong: "Vanilia".
* GrowingUpSucks: A recurring theme on ''Stars on E.S.P.''
* HairRaisingHare: One features in both of the videos made by the Brothers Quay for them.
* HauntedHouse: "How Ghosts Affect Relationships" seems to be about one.
* HorribleHistoryMetal:
** "Ear" is a weird, nonmetal example. The song's lyrics are a letter to a friend that just seems to be describing in detail the incident where Creator/VincentVanGogh cut his ear off.
** "Mama, Don't You Think I Know" is about the Manson Family.
* IAmTheBand: Warren Defever is the only consistent member of the band.
* {{Instrumentals}}: They have quite a few, mainly as interlude tracks. ''Sweet Earth Flower'' and ''All the Mirrors in the House'' are both entirely instrumental.
* IntentionallyAwkwardTitle: One of their early demos was called "I Had Sex With God." Defever also had a side project called Elvis Hitler back in the 90's.
* JumpScare:
** "E Nicolle (Introduction)" is cut off suddenly by distorted, ghostly wailing noises.
** On "There's Something Between Us And He's Changing My Words", the song starts as a calm acoustic number before it suddenly erupts into a barrage of screaming and noise. It subsequently returns to normal as though nothing had happened.
* LighterAndSofter: ''Mouth by Mouth'' and ''Stars on ESP'' to their first two records. ''Livonia'' and ''Home is in Your Head'' were both very dark, often macabre sounding albums that both featured lots of noisy soundscapes and creepy atmospheres. ''Mouth by Mouth'' and ''Stars on ESP'', on the other hand, are quirky, eclectic pop records that featured more accessible songwriting and overall had a brighter atmosphere.
* LimitedLyricsSong: "This World is Not My Home" repeats the same three lines of lyrics over and over.
* LongestSongGoesLast: They've done this from time to time.
** The original 4AD version of ''Mouth by Mouth'' ends with "The Dirt Eaters" (4:00 to 4:50 depending on the reissue), but reissues of the album add on "The Homesick Waltz" (4:01) after it, thus averting this.
** ''Detrola'' closes with "I'll Send My Face to Your Funeral" (4:59).
** "The Eclipse" (11:00) closes out ''The Eclipse''.
** "Silver Arc Curving in the Magnetic Field" (8:11) closes out ''Patterns of Light''.
* LyricalColdOpen: ''Vocal'' cold open, anyway. "As We Could Ever" and "Patterns of Light" both begin with wordless vocal harmonies.
* LyricalDissonance: Practically a part of their SignatureStyle. The music often sounds beautiful while the lyrics are subtly twisted.
** "Lip" is a joyous dream pop anthem, but the lyrics seem to describe an incredibly dysfunctional relationship involving rape and suicide.
** "Young Blood" is a gentle, heavenly little song consisting of guitar and strings, with lyrics about ''civilians being massacred by an invading army''. Its reprise at the end of the album provides music to match the lyrics, however.
** "Mama, Don't You Think I Know (I Thought I Saw)" is a smooth, jazzy song about a person playing dead to hide from ''the Manson Family''.
** ''Tecuciztecatl'' as a whole has a very bright symphonic prog sound but tells a dark tale of witchcraft and vampirism.
* MaleBandFemaleSinger: They've pretty much always had this setup.
* MindScrew: The story of ''Tecuciztecatl'', as well as most of the songs on ''Livonia''. "Ear" might also qualify for how inexplicable it is.
* MinisculeRocking: Not many of the band's songs surpass three minutes in length. Their shortest song is "Jixi", which is literally just a 17-second segment of the song "Bleeder Poem" cut out and used as the opening track. Their second shortest is "Are You Coming Down This Weekend", which is 18 seconds long and consists only of the title being sang repeatedly.
* NewSoundAlbum: Every single one of them, though ''Mouth by Mouth'' and ''Stars on ESP'' both sound quite similar to each other overall.
* NoEnding: "Ear" just sort of stops after the narrator describes Vincent van Gogh's mutilated ear, further adding to the MindScrew of the song.
* OurVampiresAreDifferent: The EvilTwin in ''Tecuciztecatl'' appears to be a vampire of some sort.
--> ''"Gemini, when I look in your eye''\\
''[[MissingReflection I can't see my reflection]]"''
* PerishingAltRockVoice: On the vanishingly rare occasion that they have male vocals, they're like this. "Electrical Powers (Turn Me On)" and "Hot Tonite" are notable examples (though the latter still has Karin Oliver doing the chorus).
* ProgressiveInstrumentation: Used in the intro for "The Examination".
* QuestioningTitle: "Are We Still Married", "Are You Coming Down This Weekend", and "How Dark Is Your Dark Side" are all questions, albeit without the question mark.
* RearrangeTheSong:
** "Are We Still Married" was changed into a keyboard driven gothic ballad for ''The Dirt Eaters'' EP, while "The Dirt Eaters" was given sparser, more ambient instrumentation with a spoken word sample added in.
** "This World is Not My Home" is played first as a hard rock song, then a folk rock song, then a gospel song throughout ''Stars on ESP''.
** Also, due to the band's constantly shifting membership, this happens to a greater or lesser extent to almost every song they play live, as they need to adapt it to fit the current lineup.
** Much of the ambient trilogy consists of cleaned up and edited recordings of tracks that appeared on early demos such as ''Love Can't Buy Happiness''.
* RecurringRiff: "Her Eyes were Huge Things" is reprised in "Her Eyes are Huge" on ''Home is in Your Head''. A sample of a ticking clock serves a similar purpose throughout the record.
* {{Retraux}}: Most of their albums in one way or another. ''Stars on ESP'' was deliberately made to sound like a 60's pop album, while ''Tecuciztecatl'' and ''Patterns of Light'' are made to resemble 70's prog rock concept albums.
* RevolvingDoorBand: The band's had literally dozens of members over the years. Currently, the only stable members are Warren Defever and Andrea Morici.
* RockOpera: ''Tecuciztecatl''.
* {{Sampling}}:
** Much of ''All the Mirrors in the House'' consists of heavily manipulated field recordings of things like waves on a lake or Warren's neighbors raking leaves.
** ''Home is in Your Head'' makes extensive use of samples, mainly of things like ticking clocks and CreepyCircusMusic, all of which contribute to the album's off-kilter, almost haunted feeling.
* SelfBackingVocalist: Many of Karin Oliver and Andrea Morici's vocals are overdubbed to give a choir effect.
* ShoutOut:
** "Universal Frequencies" is sung over a sample of "Good Vibrations" by Music/TheBeachBoys.
** "St. Michael" is an elegy to Music/MichaelJackson, released the year after his death.
* SiameseTwinSongs: All of the songs on ''Tecuciztecatl'' and most of the songs on ''Home is in Your Head''.
* SofterAndSlowerCover: Of "Man on the Silver Mountain" by Music/{{Rainbow}}, on ''The Dirt Eaters'' EP.
* SomethingBlues: "Happy Blues" and "Last Blues (Last American Blues)", .
* SongStyleShift: "Hope Called in Sick" goes from melancholic ambience to a hard rocking, almost metal sounding section in the course of about 90 seconds.
* StartMyOwn: Drummer Trey Many would go on to start the ethereal rock band Velour 100, a great and overlooked band in their own right. Warren Defever helped produce some of their records and Karin Oliver sang vocals on their second one. Unfortunately the band didn't last very long, breaking up in 2000 after just five years together.
* StopAndGo: "Sick" is a hard rock song that gets periodically interrupted by what sounds like electronic squeaking noises and a flute playing, before resuming as though nothing had happened.
* StudioChatter: The HiddenTrack after "Dreams Are of the Body" starts with Karin Oliver saying "Move that in closer because I can't bend forward from the waist and sing".
* SurrealHorror: Much of ''Livonia'' gives off this impression, particularly "E Nicolle", which starts with sound effects that wouldn't be totally out of place in a ''Franchise/SilentHill'' game, and "Caroline's Supposed Demon", a dreamy ballad about DemonicPossession with strange creaking noises in the background.
* SurrealMusicVideo: The videos for "Are We Still Married?" and "Can't Go Wrong Without You", both animated by stop motion masters the Brothers Quay. Both videos also qualify as serious SurrealHorror.
** The "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIKCEZ_oFkE video]]" for "Vanilia" is [[LeaveTheCameraRunning a single shot]] of a man in a dog costume sitting still in a room while the lights flicker on and off. [[NothingIsScarier It's surprisingly creepy]].
* TeenGenius: Warren was about 10 years old when he first started experimenting with tape music and a high schooler when he started the band in earnest. Most of the songs on ''Love Can't Buy Happiness'', ''Early Works 1985-1989'', and ''All the Mirrors in the House'' were actually made during this time period.
* TextlessAlbumCover: ''Eclipse'' simply has a black inkstain on a white background, which somehow manages to capture the album's tone pretty accurately. ''All the Mirrors in the House'' has a picture of Warren Defever as a teenager.
* ThreeChordsAndTheTruth: Zigzagged, as while most His Name is Alive songs tend to be short and simple, many of them tend to have surprisingly intricate arrangements that can't really be replicated live. See, for example, the layers of vocal harmonies all over the otherwise skeletal and stripped down ''Livonia''.
* TriumphantReprise: "Last One/Last One", which reprises "This World Is Not My Home" with a full gospel choir.
* VillainSong: "The Examination", "Vampire List", and "Yes Yes Yesterday" on ''Tecuciztecatl''.
* VocalTagTeam: ''Ft. Lake'' has Karin Oliver and Lovetta Pippen alternating lead vocals on each song, with Karin singing all the odd-numbered tracks and Lovetta singing all the even-numbered ones.
----
--> ''"When this world is over and done''
--> ''I'll sleep all day when I get home"''