AGRICULTURE - The Spiritual Sound

Even though spirituality is programmatically central to "The Spiritual Sound", hovering and lingering omnipresent through its lyrics, it's strange how a record with this title has such a physical sound. Much more so than its predecessor, the self-titled "Agriculture", which, despite its earth-bound name, was far more ethereal, reflective and scattered.

Instead, this second Agriculture album is an unstoppable, often epic blackgaze avalanche. A listen that can't leave you indifferent, both for how it turns black metal inside out with queer and defiantly rebellious content, and for how it handles its source material.

Breaking up the war waged by blazing drums and mosquito-whine guitars, there's not just post-metal stasis and build-ups, but also shamelessly catchy pop refrains. Just think of the nursery-rhyme melody that interrupts the explosive opener "My Garden", or the whispers that precede the surprisingly classic heavy metal flourishes of "Flea".

Right there, the first two tracks alone pack in elements unthinkable back at the time of the L.A. band's raw debut. But the real news isn't so much the "how much", but the "how". Every new element has been swallowed up by the Agriculture sound and folded into a metal architecture that's still guerrilla-like, as mentioned, but also more accessible and dangerously catchy.

"Micah (5:15am)" and "Serenity", for instance, are two impetuous crescendos, both in sound and in emotion, so grand and liberating that, at least in their luminous passages, they bring to mind Explosions In The Sky; "The Weight", on the other hand, opens with lacerating screamo and sludge passages, but soon climbs into dazzling, screeching, tortured and distorted solos that are nevertheless unable to hold back a hopeful melody.

And then there's "Bodhidharma", built around what is in all likelihood the metal riff of the year. Dedicated to the founder of Zen doctrine, the track lives on spiritual interludes and violent eruptions, staging one of the most impressive metal catharses of recent times.

It's often been said that The Flenser is a label that strongly stamps its identity on everything released under its banner. That's a non-issue, given the incredible average quality of its output, and "The Spiritual Sound" is no exception, as when it unleashes a droning ballad like "Dan's Love Song", close in romanticism and darkness to the more relaxed moments of label bosses Have A Nice Life.

"Hallelujah" and "The Reply" also bring utterly bare acoustic-guitar passages into the album, adding further fragility to an already extremely moving and painful work. Self-acceptance and the universality of feeling are, in fact, the beating heart of a work destined to mark today's metal world like a revolution.

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10/10/2025