Avant-garde black metal masters Agriculture wring the profound from the quotidian on incredible second album The Spiritual Sound.
Extreme music falls into one of two categories. Either it is in itself an exercise in extremity, pushing to be faster, heavier and more fantastically unlistenable for the very sake of it, or it is a project of severe expressionism, luxuriating defiantly in dissonance and abrasion. Agriculture fall magnificently into the latter, capturing the intensity of everyday human existence via soul-rattling experimentality. Otherworldly in its ability to intrigue, excite and invigorate, the Californians’ second album is a masterpiece.
Oceans of influence swirl within. Unpacking and examining these 10 tracks is an integral part of the appeal, but it is possible to explain the record simply as an album of binaries. Within compositions such as colossal opener My Garden and the frantic Micah (5. 15am), the contrast between loud and quiet, fast and slow creates absorbing dynamic contrast.
The tracklist can be split into an explosive Side A and a slower-burning Side B, too. Even the lyrical offerings from guitarist/vocalist Dan Meyer and bassist/vocalist Leah Levinson feel compellingly distinct, the former fascinated by the timeless and intangible while the latter grapples with the contemporary challenges, from queer identity to sociopolitical collapse.
All of which wouldn’t matter if the songs weren’t up to scratch. But every track here works both as individual statement and as pulsating part of an intricately interconnected whole.
Flea, for instance, deploys a brand of traditionally grim and frostbitten black metal as the foundation for a jarringly real-life portrait of the world going to shit. Then guitarist Richard Chowenhill barges in with a spectacularly sleazy solo, with drummer Kern Haug jazzing up his blastbeats all the way. Final track The Reply marries punky percussion to a vast post-metal soundscape – punctuated by passages of near silence – to reiterate composer Leonard Bernstein’s old message about the importance of artistic passion in troubled times.
Bodhidharma is arguably the most powerful American extreme metal song in a decade. Named after the monk responsible for the popularisation of Zen Buddhism, its series of gut-lurching peaks and troughs, breakneck shifts between scourging catharsis and ambient relief, make for a sonic rollercoaster listeners will want to ride for years to come.
Most impressively, Agriculture shoulder every big idea and weighty theme without drifting into pretentiousness. Musicians steeped in classical theory, popular culture and the avant-garde, they wield even the wildest twists and weirdest flourishes with absolute naturalism and steely control.
The Spiritual Sound is a fathomless pool worth hurling yourself into, a shimmering, shattering new landmark on heavy music’s mind-expanding outer limits.
Verdict: 4/5
For fans of: Deafheaven, Chat Pile, Wiegedood
The Spiritual Sound is released on October 3 via The Flenser
