His Name Is Alive

“Of all the bands to call British label 4AD home in the early ’90s, none are as inscrutable—or wholly unpredictable—as His Name Is Alive.” 
– T. Cole Rachel, Pitchfork

Soon after Tecuciztecatl was released, His Name Is Alive was invited to perform at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland by one of the scientists, so the band spent a year studying particle physics and then made Patterns of Light, an album with psychedelic rock riffs, fuzz guitar, beautiful layered vocal harmonies, sci-fi soundtrack styled synthesizer and heavily researched lyrics.

Early reviewers said “You’ve genuinely never heard anything quite like this. It might be the band’s finest moment. Ear-destroying heavy prog and delicate Broadcast / Free Design level genius vocal delivery” (Mike), “It fucking rules, like early Rush + Hawkwind + outer space” (Steve), “a psychedelic protometal prog instant classic that fell out of the sky of space time from 1973, you’ll be shaking your ass to the hottest jams you’ll ever hear” (Christian), “give me fuzz, give me wah, all your noise are belong to me. Fuck what you heard, cowards, psych will never die but you will. Allelujah Ascend Fuck” (Brian).

“Definitely a unique challenge, its not everyday you get invited to perform at an experimental-science-meets-experimental-music thing. I immediately found great inspiration in this subject which I had no connection to beforehand,” says Warren Defever about creating this album. After sending the scientist, Dr. James Beacham, lyrics and chord charts which displayed a complete misunderstanding of the Standard Model, he was asked to “fact check for bad data, misquotes, dragons, pseudoscience and to make sure the witchcraft to physics ratio wouldn’t be too embarrassing,” he agreed and soon sent pages of notes, screenshots, diagrams and also recommended books and videos.

Patterns of Light is the result of this exchange of information. The research
focuses on dark matter, dark energy, the search for extra dimensions, mini-black holes and the machinery that collides particles at high speeds using thirteen teraelectronvolts (13 TeV aka the highest energy mankind has ever used in a collider experiment) but also studies the fundamental forces of nature as seen through the classic creation myths, the visionary theology of Hildegard Von Bingen, medieval manuscripts and cosmic maps, all in an effort to turn the physics back into poetry.

180 gram vinyl housed in vintage style tip on jacket.
Exclusive worldwide distribution by Light In The Attic Records

Tracklist:
Patterns Of Light
Demonmix
Thanks A Million
Calling All Believers
Energy Acceleration
Black Wings
You Best Pray
Dragon Down
Silver Arc Curving In The Magnetic Field
(Different mixes and edits for LP, CD, and download)

Personnel:
Andrea Morici vocals, mellotron, moog
Warren Defever guitar (left channel), organ
Dusty Jones guitar (right channel), bass
J. Rowe drums, percussion, cowbell, gong

Credits:
violin and string arrangments by Jean Cook (Ida, Jon Langford, Beauty Pill)
additional mellotron by Bubba Ayoub