GRANT THE SUN - Biomes

In my album reviews, I spend most of my time wandering the shores of Death and Black Metal, only occasionally finding my way into the bay of Progressive Metal. I’m glad I get to have that experience. When the record in question is as good as "Biomes", I have to admit that I find myself looking for excuses to extend my stay in these waters. GRANT THE SUN’s latest release, "Biomes", brings the expansive, weighty atmospheres of post-metal together with the sharp rhythmic structures of progressive metal, taking a bold approach by shaping what might seem like an open-ended encounter between the two into something guided by a clear compositional vision. The Norwegian trio’s 2023 debut, "Voyage", explored a musical landscape that moved between post-metal, progressive metal, and shoegaze, evoking the shifting currents of the sea. "Biomes" expands on that approach with harsher guitar passages, a more prominent vocal presence, and compositions driven by greater rhythmic movement. The album’s conceptual framework, which juxtaposes contrasting natural habitats such as forests and deserts, also reflects the relationship between its two musical sides: expansive, melodic guitar passages coexist with angular riffs and mechanical grooves.

Opening track 'All Who Wander' brings the atmospheric side of this approach to the forefront. Broad guitar chords and melodic lines create space for the more rhythmically complex sections to breathe. Markus Lillehaug Johnsen’s clean vocals reinforce that openness, providing a melodic focal point amid the instrumental layers. Tracks such as 'Canopy' and 'Heliconia' demonstrate how the guitars do more than deliver riffs, building atmosphere through varied textures and harmonic movement. The clean production keeps these details from obscuring one another, preserving the space between the guitars’ expansive sound and the rhythm section’s sharply defined accents. As a result, the complex arrangements remain coherent in their own right rather than becoming mere displays of technical prowess.

In GRANT THE SUN’s music, rhythm is more than a means of raising the technical bar, as it often is in traditional progressive metal. Syncopated guitar patterns, unexpected accents, and abrupt changes of direction continually disrupt the melodic flow, challenging the listener’s habitual sense of meter. 'A Chemical Floor' is one of the clearest examples of this approach. Its dense rhythmic framework holds together thanks to the complementary interplay between the drums and guitars. Håvard Sveberg’s drumming is particularly impressive here; complex meters and shifting accents become natural parts of the composition rather than technical tricks that interrupt its flow. The interplay between the guitars’ rhythmic aggression and the drums’ intricate work sharpens the band’s progressive metal identity while adding to the music’s physical weight.

The vocals give this heaviness another dimension. Martin Rygge’s screams function less as a conventional vocal line carrying a continuous narrative and more as an additional element within the instrumentation’s rhythmic framework. Particularly in the denser sections, their emphatic delivery combines with the guitars’ clipped, angular movements to heighten the aggression. Clean vocals, meanwhile, open up broader melodic spaces, and the contrast between the two approaches helps shape the transitions between the album’s atmospheric and heavier passages. This choice expands the musical vocabulary of a band whose earlier work relied more heavily on instrumental expression. However, the occasional spoken-word-style passages do not achieve the same cohesion. Their mechanical delivery struggles to find a natural place between the melodic function of the clean vocals and the rhythmic contribution of the harsher ones.

The album’s most compelling moments are not limited to complex rhythms or dense guitar passages. 'The Taos Hum' continually shifts direction by setting syncopated riffs against more open, melodic sections. These transitions offer more than the technical showmanship commonly associated with progressive metal, because the heavier and more atmospheric passages function not as two separate ideas but as different points of tension within the same composition. The melodic lines that stand out on tracks such as 'Gold' and 'A Chemical Floor' also demonstrate that the album’s appeal rests on more than complexity alone. The guitars’ memorable motifs balance the density of the rhythmic detail, giving the music a quality that rewards repeated listening.

That said, not every track on "Biomes" brings these contrasts together with equal success. 'Tedium' is an example of where the harsh vocals and experimental guitar choices fail to fully integrate in places. Some of the guitar chords leave the composition suspended rather than developing its atmosphere. 'Jaguar', by contrast, revolves around a more direct motif, revealing the album’s most mechanical side through its recurring rhythmic pattern. Its Meshuggah-esque approach to groove gives the track considerable weight, but the pattern changes so little over an extended stretch that the tension fails to build. Similarly, the use of comparable vocal and drum introductions on several tracks can weaken the distinction between individual songs, even as it preserves the album’s expansive atmospheric texture. This suggests that the wealth of ideas within individual compositions does not always translate into an equally engaging overall flow.

Even so, the second half offers more moments in which GRANT THE SUN bring their various musical elements together into a natural whole. With its slower pace and unconventional harmonic turns, 'Heliconia' deepens the album’s atmospheric side without sacrificing its technical intensity. The track’s guitar textures and clearly defined drum accents establish a different balance between expansive melodies and rhythmic heaviness. 'Speck of Sand' is another passage where the experimental approach and darker tones come together more naturally. Closing track 'Cinder' provides a different kind of resolution to the instrumental narrative with its memorable vocal chorus. The greater room given to jazz-inflected harmonic detours and unconventional guitar ideas in this part of the album suggests that the band’s music is not confined to the technical possibilities of progressive metal alone.

The conceptual framework of "Biomes" also has a meaningful relationship with its musical choices. The cover artwork, depicting a desert merging with a lush rainforest, visually reflects the album’s structure of contrasts. This duality is about more than simply placing calm and heavy tracks next to one another; it becomes meaningful through the coexistence of contrasting textures within the same compositions. GRANT THE SUN combine the long-form atmospheric development of post-metal with the rhythmic precision of djent and progressive metal, while also drawing on shoegaze’s expansive, hazy guitar sound. The mechanical grooves reminiscent of Meshuggah and the technical passages rooted in the broader progressive metal tradition make the band’s influences apparent. Yet beyond these references, the relationship between melodic expanses and abrupt rhythmic interruptions within individual compositions reveals the potential for GRANT THE SUN to develop a language of their own.

"Biomes" goes beyond being an easy listen; it is a record that demands attention and patience, with details that emerge over time. Occasional overextended repetitions and underdeveloped experimental choices weaken its cohesion, but they do not entirely overshadow GRANT THE SUN’s musical explorations. The trio’s real achievement lies in their ability to hold technical complexity and atmospheric expression together. The post-metal direction established on "Voyage" gains a broader rhythmic and vocal range here, as the band seeks to bring different ideas together under a shared compositional vision rather than remain bound by the genre’s established conventions. "Biomes" does not bring this pursuit to a flawless conclusion, but it marks a considerable step forward in GRANT THE SUN’s efforts to establish a musical identity of their own.

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