Review: Agriculture Tap Into the Esoteric and the Importance of Community on Living Is Easy/The Circle Chant
Post-black metal outfit Agriculture have provided us with some more heavy, experimental music in the form of their dual release out tomorrow when they drop the Living Is Easy/Circle Chant.
Agriculture are a fairly new band, as they released their self-titled debut last summer. Since then, they’ve been exploring how heavy music can highlight the positive in our world, whether that is a connection to the infinite divine and lack of attachment or a simple love for community connection. Their brand of esoteric black metal transcends the genre conventions of black metal that isn’t cvlt enough to be taken seriously, as they are so earnest and sincere with the music they play and how they deliver it.
Looking at Living Is Easy/The Circle Chant, it’s probably easiest to address them as two separate halves of a single full-length record.
The themes on Living Is Easy center around community connection and life on this mortal plane. Each of the four tracks takes on a story from one of the Buddha’s past lives — we told you it’s esoteric, but also strangely powerful. “Being Eaten By a Tiger” is about the time the Buddha gave up his body to feed the tigers and was devoured with a smile on his face. Pretty brutal, but there’s also a bigger message about self-sacrifice and serving your community. The songs rips and takes you to another realm as the tremolo riffs and heavy connection carries it forward. “In the House of Angel Flesh” is another strong song from the EP, bringing more melody than the rest of the album and a haunting refrain.
As for the second half, The Circle Chant is also only four tracks, but these songs are a bit longer. And while the previous half deals with service and community, this second half explores different elements of both the seen and the unseen world.
The second track on the record, “Salt,” is an immediately powerful piece of music that sends you into a spiral of chaotic riffing and heavy interludes. “How to Keep Cool” probably has the best title of any of the songs on these releases, and the sound is like the frozen tundra of black metal butting right up against a hot summer’s day of activism and punk rock. It’s hard to imagine that without hearing the song, but that’s exactly how it sounds — crusty and ethos-driven but also heavy and mysterious. The central songs on the album are framed by the intro and outro that bear the same name as the record itself, giving the album a cyclical and meditative quality.
This is definitely some weird and wild black metal not recommended for purists or genre snobs, but if you like experimentation and the esoteric, especially Buddhism, I would definitely recommend giving this one a listen.
Living Is Easy and The Circle Chant are out tomorrow via The Flenser. Preorder the album here.
