On the series of archival releases that began with
All the Mirrors in the House, the ambient sounds that enveloped
His Name Is Alive's mercurial albums finally came to the forefront.
Hope Is a Candle: Home Recordings 1985-1990, the series' final installment, feels like the meeting point between the band's early
4AD albums and the works unearthed on previous volumes. There are still plenty of the shimmery atmospheres that made
Mirrors so striking (the guitar bliss of "Princess" and "Nearby"'s soft-focus strings are two fine examples) and the forays into noisier territory that emerged on
Return to Never (Home Recordings 1979-1986, Vol. 2) (the distortion-fest "Halo" is as radiant and formidable as an Old Testament angel). As striking as these pieces are, some of
Hope Is a Candle's thrilling moments occur when
Warren Defever approaches the sound of
Livonia and
Home Is in Your Head. The collection brings listeners up to the year
Livonia was released, and longtime fans will immediately recognize "Either"'s undulating guitar as the backbone of that album's "Some and I." Here and on "Liadin"'s gorgeous refractions, which foreshadow
Home Is in Your Head's interludes,
Hope Is a Candle makes a case for being the prettiest volume of the series. Elsewhere, the collection trades cohesion for surprises, and its unpredictable shifts in mood and sound feel true to the quicksilver changes of
His Name Is Alive's later music. "Never" is a lovely acoustic guitar sketch that hints at the pastoral side
Defever expanded on with
Home Is in Your Head,
Mouth by Mouth, and many self-released works; "Disappear" is a fascinating study in droning guitars and polyrhythms; and "Still"'s deep metallic drones, strings, and feedback have a heaviness that predicts some of the sounds
Defever explored years later, as well as the work of
the Haxan Cloak. Sometimes, as on the Eastern-tinged shoegaze of "Salendro" or the reflective chugging of "Porter," these tracks feel ready to be joined by
Karin Oliver's bewitching vocals and the further guitar heroics
Defever added to
Livonia, hinting that this era of
His Name Is Alive was nearing its end and another was about to begin. As on the other volumes of the series,
Hope Is a Candle makes tracing the changes in
Defever's music fascinating, and once again gives the feeling that this music is a window into some other, more beautiful, dimension. ~ Heather Phares