Living Live

One of the best bands ever to roam the regional landscape without leaving recorded footprints, To Conquer created trance-inducing songs that transcended their settings. Listeners closed their eyes and forgot where they were, as did singer and guitarist Brad Hodgson, who occasionally sleepwalked off the stage midsong.

“It was the repetition of the progressions,” Hodgson explains. “I remember the layers of sound. It was like it all kept stacking up inside, too.”

To Conquer played its previous “final show” in 2002, when Hodgson moved to Austin, Texas. When he returned, a reunion seemed inevitable, but the players had other priorities. Guitarist Keanon Liggatt plays in Atone at Tone, and drummer Mike Myers has joined Hodgson’s new gothic-folk ensemble In the Pines. Those bands will open this gig.

“We started practicing for this back in June,” Myers explains. “We got the songs to sound good again, maybe even better than they originally sounded.”

That would be quite an accomplishment, given that those unreleased numbers set new standards for sonic fidelity at area bars. Myers’ coiled rolls and disembodied vocals (the line you like to hear yourself talk suddenly blurts from behind the kit) make him the group’s secret weapon. Chuck Irons’ bass lines trigger the deep, droning spells, and Hodgson’s and Liggatt’s guitar lines weave like electric eels, setting off sparks every time they intersect.

Myers still produces To Conquer-style material “all the time,” he says. “I learned more in the short period of active playing in To Conquer than in any band.”

Hodgson, by contrast, has left the jazz-prog-metal realm. “I’ve had a big shift in what interests me from a songwriting perspective,” he says. “I’m not sure why or how.”

Neither expects the band to play another concert this year, but in better news for its patient fans, it might finally issue an actual take-home release. Myers confirms plans to record an independent full-length with producer Dave Gaumé (the Stella Link).

That album remains months away, but at To Conquer shows, time doesn’t matter. Listeners lost in the turbulent grooves can forget the interminable wait (or other pressing concerns), and they no longer have to worry about a wayward Hodgson breaking the spell.

“I’m going to stay cool,” he says with a laugh. “I’m growing older and less agile.”