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EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE: Time to Face Grant the Sun’s “Ondskans Vaktmästare”

In the past few years, it seems as if mainstream music media has started to ask the question “what the hell is post-metal?”. It gets the answer wrong a lot

5 years ago

In the past few years, it seems as if mainstream music media has started to ask the question “what the hell is post-metal?”. It gets the answer wrong a lot but we won’t hold it against them; to be honest, post-metal is really hard to pin down because it involves a bewildering array of themes, tones, and compositional approaches that together come to make up a certain sound. To fans, some things are just obviously post-metal while to outsiders they sound nothing alike. That’s just how genres go; it’s rare that a sound can be easily pinned down and described.

However, one of the biggest attributes of post-metal that often gets overlooked is groove. The genre always has a tendency to be bass and drum heavy, creating big groove section that keep tracks moving forward. Take Grant the Sun for example, a project which includes members of Heavy Blog favorites Beaten to Death and Insense. These guys make a large, groove-focused kind of post-metal which draws influences from Cloudkicker and the like but mixes it up with a lot of instrumental variety and interesting ideas, drawing a comparison to Intronaut.

“Ondskans Vaktmästare” (which should translate to “evil guardian”, if Google hasn’t mixed up Swedish and Norwegian again) is a perfect example of their sound. Off of their upcoming EP Simmar Ur Bild, it opens with a satisfying groove, the entire band moving in lockstep to the force of the rhythm created by the bass. Later on down the track though, you can find the focus shifting to bright guitars and dream-y leads, creating a more progressive and exploratory middle section. Naturally, this eventually gives way to the outro, which returns us to the big hooks of the opening moments of the track via a heavy and fast paced riff for good measure.

The entire EP is like this, complex, varied, but most of all, satisfying on a guttural, “base” level, a level which is sure to appeal to all fans of progressive, dark, and mostly “post” metal. Simmar Ur Bild releases on November 30th via Mas-Kina Recordings. Make sure you keep an eye out for it.

Eden Kupermintz

Published 5 years ago