Sunday, February 9, 8 p.m.
Rozz-Tox, 2108 Third Avenue, Rock Island IL
The droning, doom-soaked duo A Light Among Many take the stage at Rozz-Tox on February 9, on the bill with local heads Everlasting Light and Archeress.
Like many underground experimental projects before them, Denver-based act A Light Among Many started off in the realm of more formless, drone-focused releases built over guitar loops and endless expanses of ambient texture before developing the desire, or perhaps the confidence, to produce more through-composed pieces that more closely resemble traditional songs. The band’s 2019 album Vacant Stare stretches four tracks into close to an hour of music that trades a share of ambience for the bruising drums and screams of doom metal.
Album opener “The Barrier” kicks off in a moody field of clean-toned guitar and steady drumming that feels closer to say, Mogwai, than the realm of metal, but it doesn’t take long for the track to explode into a harsh stomp frosted by screams and heavily distorted guitar architectures. The track’s 18-minute running length plays out like a slow tour through various complementary genres and forms, as it segues from doom into straight-up drone stasis into interludes saturated in tremolo-picked guitar shred. Unafraid to let the structure fade into nothingness, A Light Among Many still come back eventually to some brutal doom riffing, complete with stacked vocal howls and steady kick/tom patterns that wouldn’t feel out of place on a Neurosis record.
You might ask, “If the band offers up so many different ideas and styles in the space of one 18-minute piece, why even categorize that a single track? Isn’t it a bunch of little passages stitched together?” A Light Among Many make it clear that the juxtaposition of these different styles within the context of one discrete track is exactly their goal here, as each individual element generates some additional power from the diverse contexts it emerges from. This form of composition demonstrates an awareness of metal and doom performance as a jumping point for what is essentially a collage. But unlike more free-form collage works in the school of musique concrète, A Light Among Many keep one foot planted in the world of live band performance, and some conception of metal history. By the time “The Barrier” finishes with a two-ish-minute passage of stacked guitar lines, where multiple feeds are looped and layered together, the worlds of collage and metal performance seem to have fully fused.
The next track, “The Missionary” takes a different approach to the juxtaposition of far-flung musical styles, as it swirls in a default position closer to drone or ambient, led by standing walls of guitar texture. The band lets their chords ring through lengthy cascades of feedback and peaking distortion, landing closer to the epic, metallic drone works of Sunn O)) or Boris (see the former’s Black One or the latter’s Absolutego), and of course their acknowledged antecedents, Melvins. A Light Among Many clearly lay out their tracks with one central mood or style of performance in mind, before tempering that starting point with shifts into new territories, often heralded by more legible drum beats and guitar progressions. The result is an unpredictable menu of styles that seems intent on surprising the listener with sudden detours, while letting them sink into complete ego death in the more extended passages of drift.
A Light Among Many plays Rozz-Tox on February 9 with sets by Everlasting Light and Archeress, admission to the 8 p.m. concert is a sliding scale of $5-10, and more information is available by calling (309)200-0978 or visiting RozzTox.com.
