Black Spikes have finally found their sound – vocalist Agni on upcoming “Ydos” album: “We are where we always wanted to be”

Lithuanian metal band Black Spikes will release their new album “Ydos” on August 28th via Napalm Records. The upcoming record takes the band’s music in an increasingly heavy direction while keeping the door wide open for different influences rather than restricting themselves to any particular subgenre of metal.

Chaoszine recently sat down with Black Spikes vocalist Agni to discuss the upcoming album, the band’s musical evolution, the importance of singing in Lithuanian, her own journey into extreme vocals and the current state of the Lithuanian metal scene.

At the time of the interview, the band had just completed an intense period surrounding the new album, including shooting the final music videos. With that work now finished, Black Spikes are eagerly waiting to finally release the record and show audiences what they have created.

Black Spikes have finally found the sound they were looking for

While “Ydos” may introduce many international listeners to a new and significantly heavier version of Black Spikes, the band themselves consider it their third album.

During their early years, Black Spikes leaned much more heavily towards hard rock. With “NIL”, the band began discovering the identity that defines them today, while “Ydos” takes that evolution considerably deeper into heavier territory.

According to Agni, the band have finally reached the musical place they always wanted to be.

The members come from very different musical backgrounds and bring different interests into the creative process. Their influences include everything from electronic music to black metal, but their shared love of heavy music ultimately connects them.

Bringing all of those different ideas together hasn’t always been easy.

Creating “NIL” became exhausting at times as the members struggled to make their different ideas work together. At the same time, the experience taught Black Spikes an important lesson about songwriting: instead of immediately rejecting someone’s idea, they needed to find a way of making it work within the music.

That completely changed the approach to “Ydos”. Whenever somebody brought an idea to the table, the goal was no longer to decide whether to discard it, but to figure out how it could become part of the bigger picture.

Singing in Lithuanian has become an international strength

Black Spikes have continued singing in Lithuanian even as their international career has grown.

The decision originally happened completely naturally. During the band’s early days, they weren’t particularly focused on reaching listeners outside their home country. The initial goal was simply to become good at what they were doing in Lithuania and see where the road might eventually lead.

Over the years, however, plenty of people told the band that they would never achieve international success unless they switched to English.

Black Spikes chose not to listen.

For Agni, writing in her native language allows her to be considerably more honest and go deeper lyrically than she feels she could in English. The support of Napalm Records has further strengthened the band’s belief that Lithuanian can actually be one of the qualities that makes Black Spikes stand out internationally.

Something that seems completely ordinary to the band at home can sound distinctive and unique to listeners elsewhere in the world. As a result, Black Spikes have embraced that aspect of their identity even more and intend to continue singing in Lithuanian.

“Ydos” explores the vices of humanity

The new album was conceived as a complete body of work rather than simply a collection of individual songs.

During the first proper songwriting session, some members were working on guitar riffs while Agni and Sime spent the evening on a terrace drinking wine and discussing what kind of message they wanted the album to convey.

That conversation eventually led them towards the idea of exploring the vices of humanity.

The band constructed a concept around those vices, imagining how they are born, enter the human world and begin interacting with people, pushing them in different directions and influencing their choices. That concept became the foundation running throughout “Ydos”.

The visual side of Black Spikes is also an important part of the band’s identity. Ideas for music videos don’t necessarily appear after a song has been completed. In many cases, the band are already visualizing scenes and imagery while the music itself is still being written.

As a result, a considerable amount of visual material has been created around “Ydos”, with more music videos and visualizers still to come.

Extreme vocals came later

Agni’s own journey into heavy music is somewhat unconventional as well.

She didn’t grow up immersed in rock and metal but discovered metal in her twenties. During her teenage years, her musical interests went through periods of rap and electronic music before heavier sounds eventually found their way into her life.

Originally, Agni only used clean vocals in Black Spikes.

Extreme vocals began entering the picture during the recording of the band’s first album. While working on the songs, she increasingly felt that clean singing alone wasn’t conveying all of the emotions the material required, leading her to begin experimenting with screaming.

Learning to do it safely was important from the very beginning. Clean singing was still her main priority, so she didn’t want to develop extreme vocals at the expense of damaging her voice. Whenever an exercise caused her to cough or otherwise felt wrong, she stopped and looked for another way of producing the sound.

Among the artists she practiced along with were Jinjer and In This Moment. Jinjer vocalist Tatiana Shmayluk in particular became an inspiration through her ability to move between powerful extreme vocals and clean singing.

Today, Agni approaches her voice as another instrument within the music.

In her view, metal isn’t necessarily about putting the vocals at the center of everything. Instead, the voice represents another layer contributing to the complete sonic picture.

That philosophy also means plenty of experimentation in the studio. Rather than learning specific vocal techniques and then forcing them into songs, Agni listens to the music and experiments until she finds the tone, timbre and approach that best serves each particular section.

The same mentality applies to Black Spikes as a whole. The band don’t want to decide beforehand what genre their next song needs to represent. If they discover an idea that excites them and works musically, they will build around it regardless of where the influence originally comes from.

Their first tour gave the band new confidence

The band’s first proper tour with Infected Rain didn’t directly influence the writing of “Ydos”, as the album had already been created by that point. The experience did, however, have a major impact on Black Spikes’ confidence as a band.

Before heading out, the members didn’t really know what to expect from touring or even whether they would enjoy that lifestyle.

They quickly discovered that they loved it.

Rather than feeling like work, Agni described the experience as almost the best vacation the band could have imagined. It gave them additional confidence and motivation to keep creating music, take advantage of new opportunities and spend considerably more time performing outside Lithuania.

Black Spikes are now focusing on the release of “Ydos” and their album release show in Lithuania. The remainder of the year currently looks relatively quiet on the live front, which means the band are already turning their attention towards writing new material. Further touring plans are also expected to take shape for 2027.

Lithuania has plenty of metal talent but needs a bigger audience

The conversation also turned towards the current state of the Lithuanian metal scene.

According to Agni, the scene remains relatively small, although there have recently been encouraging signs of change.

This year saw metal represented at Lithuania’s biggest music awards for the first time, giving heavier music an opportunity to be recognized in a much larger mainstream setting. Agni sees that as an important step forward for musicians in the country.

The problem, she says, isn’t a lack of talent.

Lithuania has plenty of talented musicians and metal bands, but they often struggle to find both an audience and places to perform. There are only a handful of venues across the country suitable for metal shows, making it difficult for young bands to remain motivated when it can feel as though they are creating music without anyone there to hear it.

Black Spikes experienced that feeling themselves, at times believing they were essentially making music only for themselves before Napalm Records discovered the band and opened new international opportunities.

Agni hopes Black Spikes’ own progress can ultimately help open the door for other Lithuanian metal bands as well, because she believes there is plenty more waiting to be discovered.

You can watch Chaoszine’s full video interview with Black Spikes vocalist Agni below.

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You can check out the singles released from Black Spikes‘ upcoming “Ydos” album below: