I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: November 2, 2025] Agriculture

I had never heard of Agriculture, but I knew that Boris’ opening bands could be pretty intense.  And that was the case here.  They call their music ecstatic black metal and that description, while slightly vague, is really spot on.  There is screaming and growling, speed and heaviness but also a lot of brightness and beauty.

They came out with an absolute blast of noise–screaming  guitars slamming drums and after a minute, guttural growls.  It was intense and a bit overwhelming.

And then imagine when two minutes in, the song shifted to a simply strummed and quietly sung section (that still had super fast drumming).  The quiet music remained but the growling guttural vocals continued.  And then back to the melodic part again.

I was standing in front of singer Dan Meyer who had a big beard and did a full body stomp each time the song was about to kick in.

On the far side was lead guitarist Richard Chowenhill who played insanely fast and really beautiful solos.

And then a shocking thing happened.  After 5 minutes of My Garden, they moved on to Hallelujah, which is on the same album. For this three minute song Dan played a quiet guitar–strumming gently and then he sang with a gentle and delicate falsetto.  For the last 30 seconds the song shifted between a simple guitar riff and pounding double pass hammering.

For Bohidharma they opened with a pretty, but heavy riff and then slowed things down to practically a crawl–just a slow drum beat when bassist Leah Levinson walked up to the mic and screamed her head off.  Then with just Kern Haug beating the drums slowly, Levinson sang quietly, achingly.  Dan screamed along as well all the while Chowenhill was playing this gorgeous guitar riff, and later one of the greatest guitar solos I’ve heard in ages.  At the end of the scream fest, Levinson told us that her mom was there.

This was followed by Dan’s Love Song, a quietly sung soft that was practically shoegaze with the softness of the fuzzy guitars.  Which was abruptly channeled into the screaming heaviness of The Weight.  It is screamed vocals (from Levinson) and heavy guitars.  Until the last minute in which a quietly strumming guitar plays underneath more of Levinson’s throat-wrecking delivery.

The Reply followed with more speed and heaviness.  Until the middle section quieted down with more of Dan’s quiet delivery.

They ended with Living is Easy, the only song from their first album.  It isn’t very different from the others, although there was a but more gorgeous guitar soloing melody on this song and the screaming was a little less throat blistering (but still pretty intense).  The guitars were remarkably uplifting like an anthem at the climax of a movie–all while the screaming never let up.

The set was intense but, as their description suggests, strangely uplifting. And, despite the brutality of their sound, they all seem really nice.  They just announced a headline tour in January and I am really looking forward to what they do when they are in charge.

§ The Spiritual Sound (2025)
£  Living is Easy (2023)