Breaking down barriers and summoning dark fairytale demons: Lithuanian modern metal sensations Black Spikes talk about overcoming the doubters, mastering their visually incredible aesthetic, and rising to the top…

Words by Cheryl Mann | Nov 09, 2026

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In a world full of standard metal acts, Black Spikes stands out as a genuinely brilliant, multi-dimensional force. The Lithuanian modern metal band sat down to talk about the insane creativity behind their stunning visuals, the incredible depth of their evolution, and the resilient mindset required to push past the haters and cement their place as one of the fastest-rising global metal bands on the radar right now.

Your sound shifted from rock to heavy metal, and your visuals became incredibly intense. How did the music evolve into this heavier territory, and Agni, how did you bring that unique visual world to life alongside it?

Agni – “Actually the band was created by me and our bass player Sime, and we had from the very beginning, a very strong idea of having this strong visual part. I remember our first gig, we didn’t have enough songs to play. We had a show with two songs because it was some kind of contest like a young bands contest, so yeah it was enough to have like two songs to participate there and we had this visual identity, we got some moves and you know some like interesting dresses made for this occasion especially. So yeah, that was very important for us starting from 2018 and at that moment, we were playing hard rock. It wasn’t close to metal, but we always had this vision to play heavier music, it was just at that time we had the other girls in the band who were not so much in love with metal, so we were trying to find our middle ground. From the onset, we had a strong idea to have a female band and we started as four ladies, so yeah at the beginning we played hard rock. Since Mazvis joined the band, he gave his initial input, he was always into metal and so yeah then we had this switch and our lineup has changed a lot yeah at least a couple of changes there but yeah.”

The dark fairy-tale concept behind Ydos is absolutely brilliant—the sheer level of creativity you guys reached completely locks me in. Which song on the album was the initial spark that brought this whole creative world to life? And when fans listen to the record from front to back, what do you hope they truly feel?

Agni – “Everything started with Motina because I remember we had our first recording session with the guys who went for the whole weekend.”

Mazvis – “It’s sort of not a recording session, it was like a retreat.”

Agni – “Yeah exactly and you know it was the same day when me and Sima created the whole concept and at the same time, the guys started to write Motina, the first song so that’s like literally where everything has begun for us.”

Mazvis – “I think Motina was like at that point was sort of already a song, we had a bunch of you know like scraps here and there but it was like the fullest song and Sima and Agni were sitting and sort of daydreaming about what could the album be about and then sort of kicked it off from there.”

Agni – “Yeah and already knew those demons, we had already created the names for those demons. That we are like screaming in Motina, so these are the children of Motina, those vices that are born in the pure land and they are coming to us to the human world to interact with humans. So we created all those names like some symbolic details. We picked the colours for each demon so we already had the strong vision on how it will look like and then this sort of impacts the whole process afterwards because you sort of have a deadline and a target because we have eight demons now, we have to have eight songs for demons, what will this demon sound like etc.”

You predominantly sing in Lithuanian. Have you faced major barriers in the English-speaking industry because of this, or are global fans proving that language is no longer a barrier in modern metal?

Agni – “For us you know it was very natural we’ve been creating and performing in Lithuania so this is our native language and when we created the band we didn’t even have such a strong goal to go abroad. We thought that if we will be good in Lithuania, it’s something already and yeah there were like many people telling us, guys you will not succeed if you keep to Lithuanian language because you have to show your music to the world and you have to definitely start singing in English. But you know for me I wouldn’t be so honest and pure in my lyrics and my text trying to write that in English because you know that’s not my native language. I want to go deeper in the lyrics. I want to have those like metaphors and interesting messages there so that is something that I can do with my native language.”

Mazvis – “So for me, it was never strange. I mean like metal is that genre where you can do that because I think I started at 14 or 15, I started listening to Finnish folk bands and I was singing like in Finnish without any idea what it means but I loved how it sounds.”

Agni, your vocal power is unbelievable. A lot of young women wanting to get into metal struggle with imposter syndrome and fear when it comes to their voice. What is your best advice for overcoming that self-doubt, and what is a good practical starting point for transitioning from melodic singing into screaming?

Agni – “I would just say one thing, never give up trying. There is lots of material on YouTube you can learn from. We have lots of tools nowadays but all of it won’t help if you will not be persistent with that I mean you have to keep working and of course at the beginning you won’t be good. I wasn’t good, like I was receiving lots of bad comments on my voice that I cannot sing that I wasn’t meant to sing. I wasn’t meant to scream. I remember that I had this like very sensitive moment in my life when I was ready to give up because I had enough of bad comments, I was trying so hard but all the time hearing only negative feedback and I was at that moment of just giving everything up but I just again did one extra step and then things startedrapidly to change. I mean we got contacted by Napalm Records, we started getting attention, I mean just nothing has changed from my side, I was the same girl.”

You recently toured with Infected Rain and Butcher Babies. As a band, what did you learn from opening for such seasoned, high-energy acts, and what tips do you use to win over a crowd as the support band?

Agni – “We were different, we’re paying lots of attention to our costumes and those like tiny tiny details, so yeah that is something that distinguished us from other bands.”

You guys have broken barriers, evolved your sound, and built a completely unique visual world. When you look back at how far you’ve come, what accomplishment makes you say, ‘Wow, we really did that’?

Agni – “I’m so proud of our team I would say like this is the most important if we wouldn’t have these people which we have now in our team we wouldn’t go so far.”

Mazvis – “So the last album because it took a lot of work, incredible work, yeah so it was a bit tedious and hard and at times it was really fun but yeah we’re sort of proud of the results so yeah and all those music videos.”