Steve Von Till
w/Tarentel, Grails, Nation of Two

Sun May 16, Vera Project, 7:30 pm, $7 (with club card)/$8.

There's a chill that sticks to singer Steve Von Till's music, whether it's the blustery, despondent gale howling through his work with Bay Area ambient progressive-metalheads Neurosis (and their more experimental offshoot, Tribes of Neurot) or the quiet winds leaking through the cracks of his whispery solo releases. Either way, his voice has a certain dampness, a sense of tear-dried resolve that clings, as Von Till traverses his spiritual terrain, like a soaked second skin. The ache is much more pronounced--and the terrain corralled into broom-closet-sized spaces with trap doors--when you take away the gargantuan backing of his more heavily atmospheric acts and give Von Till a single instrument.

On the two releases--2000's As the Crow Flies and 2002's If I Should Fall to the Field--for his own Neurot Recordings label (a roster that includes billmates Tarentel and Grails), Von Till mostly chooses understated accompaniments for his rough-hewn vocals, plunking away on a piano at a mournful pace, reducing the percussion to a few restless beats, or strumming an acoustic guitar like he's making melodies for the heavily sedated. It's roots- and country-influenced music that makes Low look uplifting, but Von Till's work is far from wilted, weepy sadcore. There's a strength to the heaviness in his voice, one comparable to Mark Lanegan's through-hell-and-back edge, which allows Von Till's husky delivery to divulge even more about his life than his lyrics. Weightiness is instilled in everything he does, and carries over to his solo work, so it's less the act of a singer-songwriter than a compression of his louder bands into a much denser set of emotions. And then there are the lyrics, sewn together with images of weedy fields, broken anvils, and dreams washed out to sea, earthy elements telling larger stories of landscapes both organic and emotional.

Heady material for sure, but for emotionally steamrolling times, when the prevailing mood is that of being crushed by the gravity of dark forces around you, Steve Von Till provides the delicate soundtrack.

jennifer@thestranger.com