Agriculture : "S/T"

These kids identify as "ecstatic black metal". I guess that is what the kids are calling black gaze these days .In many ways they are the kind of hip wanting to deconstruct the norm you might expect from a black metal band out of Los Angeles. Their mission statement is rather than invoke the darkness and macabre to embrace bliss. That is why it sounds like black metal at times , but never feels like it because the black in metal is not referring to Black lives mattering , but about darkness and hate. Anything else is not black metal, ok now with that out of the way they begin to owe more to Liturgy  by the time the first song is over , as they shed the shed the shoe gazing for a feral explosion. 

The second song employs  actual singing to break things up. I can appreciate the attempts at this. But the entire song is indie folk. They lash back into black metal with the first part of "the Look". It sounds like cats are being skinned in a hurricane. The chaotic middle section does not discourage this comparison. The part two this song trilogy sounds even more like Liturgy down to the ringing tone of the guitar that does not work off the normal black metal tremolo picking, if you try to deny this you just do not want to hear it as it's in your face. By this time we are in the meat of this album's metallic aspirations, and they go to prove bucking tradition is fine and well, unless nothing is wrong with the tradition. I am someone who does not want to hear the same old black metal blast beats, and both Deafheaven and Liturgy are two of my favorite America black metal bands. But like the funk, metal is something you can not fake. 

I was over two minutes into the third part of the trilogy before I realized this was not the previous song still playing. This is also when the album becomes something I am enduring more than I am enjoying, b but only one more song to press through after this . Even worse was being five minutes into the last song before realizing after the second songs all the songs sound the same. I will give this album a 7, it's a intense sonic blur that bleeds together. Interesting early on then everything becomes a blur. It is going to get hyped for sure, but little that I have not already heard done better by better bands.