Band:	Green Carnation
Album:	Leaves Of Yesteryear
Style:	Gothic metal, Progressive metal
Release date:	May 2020

01. Leaves Of Yesteryear
02. Sentinels
03. My Dark Reflections Of Life And Death
04. Hounds
05. Solitude [Black Sabbath cover]

As far as the wave of prog comeback efforts go, Leaves Of Yesteryear is more bite-sized than most.

When Tool released their first album in 13 years, they couldn't fit the full tracklist on one CD. In comparison, Green Carnation, who also last released an album in 2006, have put together something that is almost half the length of Fear Inoculum. What's more, of the 5-song tracklist, only 3 are original songs, with the remainder comprised of a re-recording of a song from their first album, Journey To The End Of The Night, and a cover of Black Sabbath's "Solitude". As such, Leaves Of Yesteryear almost feels like an EP. Hopefully the band will continue to be active and release a more substantial effort in the future, as the music that does make it onto Leaves Of Yesteryear serves as a satisfying reminder of why this record was so anticipated.

When we last heard anything from Green Carnation, they had stripped down their sound for The Acoustic Verses. Nothing from that particular venture has carried over to here, as Leaves Of Yesteryear feels closest to A Blessing In Disguise out of any of their previous records, albeit with a proggier and more modern approach. This more modern approach makes the re-envisioning of "My Dark Reflections Of Life And Death" a resounding success. Those who are more partial to Journey To The End Of The Night may disagree, but as someone who never particularly clicked with that album, I feel like "My Dark Reflections?" greatly benefits from the maturation of the band's style, the cleaner production and the presence of Kjetil Nordhus on vocals, who only joined the band in time for the following year's classic Light Of Day, Day Of Darkness. Only founding member Tchort also featured on the previous incarnation of this song, and the current version of Green Carnation have justified the decision to offer their own take on the song here.

As far as the original songs go, "Leaves Of Yesteryear" immediately ranked amongst my favourite Green Carnation songs from the moment it was released a couple of months ago; between the rich atmosphere, moving and memorable vocal melodies, and the anthemic keyboard work, it serves as a tremendously strong introduction to the album it shares a name with. "Sentinels" and "Hounds" haven't impressed me quite so much after my first few playthroughs of Leaves Of Yesteryear, but both have the distinctive Green Carnation sound that makes for such pleasant listening, and both contain a number of great moments, particularly the lengthier "Hounds", with its memorable chorus and classic-sounding guitar solo. "Hounds" would make a satisfying end to a 4-song EP; unfortunately, the closing minutes of Leaves Of Yesteryear are reserved for an adequate but somewhat redundant cover of Black Sabbath's "Solitude", a track that has been covered to greater effect by Ulver amongst others.

Leaves Of Yesteryear won't challenge Light Of Day, Day Of Darkness as the band's best effort, but fans of Green Carnation should still be suitably satisfied by this comeback effort, and whilst Disillusion's The Liberation still holds the title of the best follow-up to a 2006 album, Leaves Of Yesteryear allows Green Carnation to join Disillusion, Tool, Pure Reason Revolution, Conception and more in returning after 10+ years away and demonstrating their relevance. Now I can only hope that they will stay active long enough to release another album after this.