Agriculture played Toronto on an unusually mild day for early February. Dozens of heavily eyelinered, university-aged concertgoers stood chatting and smoking outside The Great Hall on Queen and Dovercourt, a refreshing sight after yet another brutal winter. The Great Hall is a rather unique venue: the Victorian building was built to house the YMCA in 1889, and part of its balcony was once a running track. The venue’s former life is evident in its current layout—frankly, a terrible one. After running up and down a rather daunting set of stairs to check my coat, I made it to the concert floor. Tragically, I had missed the opener, Knoll. I had never heard of them previously, but they charmed me with their merch, which featured a gun-toting Dolly Parton. 

The shirt I bought at Agriculture’s merch table reads, “I Love The Spiritual Sound Of Ecstatic Black Metal By The Band Agriculture.” As the band kicked off the show with their song “Flea,” that black metal aspect was immediately obvious to me. Agriculture’s punishing guitar and shrieking vocals are hallmarks of the genre and reminiscent of contemporaries like Deafheaven, a frequent comparison from those with untrained ears. But Agriculture deserves far more than to just be likened to larger bands in their genre. Their music is rife with religious themes. Unlike the infamous church-burners in the Norwegian black metal scene, the band engages with religion in a more receptive way. You see this on their new album, The Spiritual Sound, with songs such as the lead single, “Bodhidharma,” which references the Buddhist monk of the same name. While other bands in the scene, like the previously mentioned Deafheaven, no doubt incorporate ambient sounds into their music, ambience here serves to let the listener contemplate the subject matter. Additionally, vocalist Leah Levinson refracts religious iconography and experiences through a queer lens. Religiosity emerges from one’s connections with the world and the environment instead of religious institutions, which can all too often serve as a restrictive force. There’s a lot of heaviness to be found in Agriculture’s catalogue as well. The band keeps the energy high throughout the new album, such as on “My Garden,” which kicks off with a punkish bassline and a barrage of blastbeats. While I was expecting to go absolutely nuts in the pit for this one, the audience stayed surprisingly still, with only one brave soul trying to open up the pit and failing. “Micah (5:15am)” also got the crowd excited (but not to the point of any movement, unfortunately) with its sprinklings of hardcore and thrash metal. 

Agriculture gave their sound further depth and meaning in their live show, which brings me back to the band’s slogan for the “spiritual” and the “ecstatic.” The members of Agriculture look scattered across space and time. Levinson and the band’s guitarist, Richard Chowenhill, lie firmly in the 21st century, but drummer Kern Haug and guitarist/vocalist Dan Meyer look like transplants from the 1800s. Throughout the set, I felt transported to a mass in a run-down church 200 years ago, Meyer standing at the pulpit. His hallelujahs on the fittingly titled “Hallelujah” were punctuated only by some quiet guitar, with long moments of silence in between that left room for audience members’ loud cheers. Levinson also used silence to great effect on “Bodhidharma.” These meditative moments made the band’s performance way more effective than when I saw them open for Chat Pile in 2024. As the main act in a smaller venue, the band could truly capture the audience’s attention instead of being the background noise for people milling about. The pauses also gave welcome respite from the truly punishing wall of noise that Agriculture cultivated throughout the rest of their set. 

Agriculture’s show at The Great Hall left me feeling spiritually renewed, a feeling further emphasized by the first signs of spring weather on my long walk home. In a time where religion has served as a threat to queer individuals and a tool to force them into fear and silence, Agriculture’s spirituality is an act of resistance.