Agriculture played The Sinclair – 2/12
L.A. black metal deconstructionists Agriculture packed out The Sinclair last week with support from Knoll and Glacier.
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Agriculture pitch their take on a complicated, corpse-painted subgenre as “ecstatic black metal” (they’ll even sell you a bumper sticker to that effect), and indeed, it’s an adjective befitting the cathartic twists and turns of their music. Many a band has softened the serrated edges of trve black metal with dreamy textures and post-rock patience over the years, but Agriculture’s impassioned approach and rollercoaster song structures do feel like they’re pushing something singular – particularly on last October’s sophomore LP The Spiritual Sound. The scene obviously agrees, as Thursday’s supporting date at The Sinclair was one of the more densely-attended and enthusiastically buzzed-about heavy shows I’ve been to in a minute.
A killer supporting bill certainly didn’t hurt. Boston’s post-metal titans Glacier played first, though a Globe assignment across town unfortunately caused me to miss them. Bad for my soul to miss a Glacier set, probably good to skip one here and there for the longterm health of my hearing. When I did arrive, Tennessee deathgrinders Knoll were in the middle of conducting something of an extreme metal seance. The stage was fully dark and vocalist James Eubanks was issuing sinister intonations over a simmering bed of noise, which eventually exploded in a cacophonous metallic burst as the band’s own stage lights came back up, revealing an array of lamps and furniture that seemed to have been lifted from The Haunted Mansion. While I would’ve liked to catch the whole set, entering en medias res did go a ways towards enhancing the already-disorienting effects of Knoll’s dizzying attack.
Agriculture hit the stage to close out the night around 10, barreling straight into a suite of Spiritual Sound, and again that word “ecstatic” came to mind. Theirs is sonically and spiritually heavy music, but the emphatic delivery, particularly from co-vocalists Dan Meyer (guitar) and Leah Levinson (bass), rooted the experience in communal release. It’s a moment where there’s a lot to feel angry and hopeless about in America and abroad – something the band and their very visible trans pride, Free Palestine and FUCK ICE flags did not shy away from – and at its most utterly blistering and most pared-back (see Meyer’s disarming beautiful “Hallelujah”), the set created a space to channel both collective rage and defiant joy. Agriculture’s collision of throat-shredding screams, shapeshifting riffs and bracing moments of vulnerability feels daring and vital, particularly right now. There’s good reason they’re striking a chord with an increasingly huge audience.
Check out a gallery from Agriculture’s set, and a few looks at Knoll as well, below.
