In the 90s, when black metal performed its most radical, significant evolutionary step from its early 80s form, the new schism took on some of its most famous, indelible, and controversial facets. There has been much ink spilt on many of the notorious elements – both musically, aesthetically, and morally – with a penchant both within the movement and wider scene, and certainly when featured outside it, to focus on the negative.
Something I’ve seen considered very little, despite almost a decade’s worth of interesting reflection and output by certain artists, is that those 90s bands – whether for “good” or for “bad”– seemingly rejected the outright refutation of the spiritual. They may have raged against organised religion, but many of those albums pushed back against the 80s blunt messaging, and adopted artwork, lyrics and occasionally even early samples of nature, ancient custom, “Mother Earth”, and more.
In recent years, black metal as a sub-genre within the great extreme metal (or just “metal”) pantheon, is perhaps the one with the greatest splintering of sound. While I’m not a listener, nor a writer, who hyper-fixates on these increasingly long, precise, and niche sub-sub-genre tags, I’m also not someone who outright rejects the purpose – or rather intent – behind it. In fact, I find it deeply intriguing.
These tags can be to differentiate; to signal a rejection of a sound or indeed an ethos that might be associated to a scene that sounds similar; can be deadly serious; can be tongue-in-cheek; can – dare I say it – be rather good “marketing”; and, as usual with life, a mix of many of these considerations and more.
Which all leads me to consider a black metal band called Agriculture, with their increasingly iconic refrain: “I love the spiritual sound of ecstatic black metal by the band Agriculture.” And, while I’m at it, I probably ought to consider the dark, punk-infected black metal of tonight’s support, Machukha (Ukrainian for “stepmother”), and their coaxing of their sound to embody resilience, while clothed in traditional garments, tied to nation and nature.
So, why in Hackney, in the year of someone’s Lord, twenty-twenty-five, do we have two travelling black metal bands travelling to London, who have stripped the worst parts of the sub-genre ethos away, while maintaining reverence for nature, life, and meaningful connection? I’ll spoil the ending. It’s love; kindness; inclusivity. The old Rubicon of black metal now only the structure by which catharsis is attained; new messaging, new focus, and new vibrancy have taken root. At the Oslo, two of the best of this new contemporary generation burst the dam and let the river find its original route once more, divested of the guardrails of recent musical tradition and genre orthodoxy.
Machukha took stage, vocalist Natalya in an eye-catching, handmade, traditional Ukrainian dress under a douse of red lighting. The band launch into their robust, potent, tenacious melange of black metal that also takes the best of raw punk and the darkest depths of visceral hardcore, in front of a large crowd. I, for one, was very much there to also see them, and I was pleased – and honestly taken aback – to find how many others had done likewise. Those that were there early could be easily identified; jaws dropped and entranced by the enchanting eruption of the band’s signature sound.
I believe the band played the entirety of their excellent debut album Mochari, the group a blur of movement on stage, unrelenting in their passionate display. ‘Безпліддя’ (‘Bezpliddya’), lead single to last year’s record, which released on the ever-awesome Consouling Sounds, was a particular highlight – the caustic fury and valiant grit and fortitude of its message apparent to all those present, despite it being maniacally screamed in Machukha’s native tongue. So dazed am I and much of the audience that it’s only as the last sounds ebb away and members begin to leave the stage that Oslo erupts into rapturous applause.
Agriculture feel like a band that have been around for a long time. Their namesake certainly has. More than ten-thousand years in fact. The Los Angeles, California quartet may not feel quite that old, but some of their melodies do tap into something fundamental. Anyway, back to my point. Despite their debut EP, The Circle Chant, only having released in April 2022, the band have made such an impression on the black metal – and indeed metal – underground at large, with their impressive regularity of releases, that their forthcoming sophomore album, The Spiritual Sound, is for surely many, including myself, one of 2025’s most anticipated records.
Photo: Chris Keith-Wright
The four-piece play from across their small but remarkable body of work, veering from pieces that feel built to be played in the most alternative of alternative religious sites, perhaps where one views the vista of a city’s high rises start to topple, Fight Club-esque, while in other moments songs feel tender, deeply personal, poignant, and rooted in the daily fight to survive individually, rather than those railing against societal collapse. It is the pendulum swing between these two perspectives, rather than being caught in a more generalised middle-ground of discontent, that allows Agriculture’s sonic might and emotional heft to shine through.
Photo: Chris Keith-Wright
Like a scalpel rather than a sword, the band slice through the fog of the night, bright but warm yellow stage lights beaming behind them as they reach for the zenith of the musically divine. Agriculture is a pulling apart of some elements of nature to form something nourishing for the betterment of a group, and the quartet’s writing and compositional style reflects this; with Dan and Leah bringing ideas, allowing them to be dismantled, revised, and grown by themselves and the band’s other members, Richard and Kern. There is a wildness to their music, while also a holistic tethering to the ground, that allows each track to have brute seismic force, while fluttering like long grass in the breeze.
As the band close their set, the London crowd are indeed ecstatic, the gig tonight providing spiritual solace in a world that seems so chaotic right now. One of those rare evenings when music not only delights, but refreshes and provides sustenance, sonically and emotionally. Love; kindness; inclusivity – that’s the new spiritual sound. Leave your fury in the venue with those snarling amps. We walk into the air, renewed.
