Benjamin Hacking
As they inject vocals into their established sound of experimentally driven progressive metal, Grant The Sun attempt to push themselves into this new musical chapter with renewed purpose. Biomes is an album full of the elements you would expect from a progressive band of their talents – extremely technical guitar riffs, shifting rhythms and atmospheric soundscapes. When combining these with their newly added in vocal melodies, Biomes is at its best; they manage to create wonderfully full metal tracks not dissimilar to bands such as Haken.
Each track manages to layer on itself beautifully, usually sticking with a driving, rhythmic riff throughout the song, as more and more wonderful layers are added on top. This allows the band to explore those crushingly powerful guitar riffs that metal fans are so fond of whilst delving into the expressive atmospheres and soundscapes that make up a lot of the duality in this album’s identity.
However, this repeating formula at times can make the tracks feel somewhat repetitive – especially when listening to the record as a whole, it can all blend together into a mass of similar sounding progressive metal that doesn’t change it up enough throughout the album to keep things fresh. Consequently, when the atmospheric vocals of Markus Lillehaug Johnsen and Martin Rygge are used, they really are appreciated – adding some needed individuality to their appropriate tracks. While this isn’t ideal, it’s certainly a good sign of things to come, as the most engaging sections of the album are the band’s most recent additions to their continuously growing sound.
Fortunately, you don’t have to wait for these moments, as the highs of the album are displayed right from the opening track in ‘All Who Wonder’. The wonderful vocals used throughout this first song really add to the atmospheric feel of the sound, resulting in an incredibly characterful soundscape that seems to promise similarly engaging sounds as the album goes on. This promise is met in further tracks such as the standout track that is ‘Canopy’ and the climactic closer ‘Cinder’. However, to truly take their sound to the next great level, Grant The Sun may need more of these moments in their future work.
Unfortunately, Biomes suffers from the ongoing issue of progressive metal becoming more of a hard label in recent times. In a genre that prides itself on being experimental and pushing the boundaries of music, there seems to be a growing predictability in certain areas from said progressive sound.
However, Biomes is a really solid album displaying exquisite amounts of musical talent that can not be overlooked despite the prior points. It’s clear that each member of the band has a ridiculous amount of skill in each of their chosen areas, and as Grant The Sun delve more into their new found voices they are certainly one to keep an eye on as they level up their already impressive sound.