Green Carnation - A Dark Poem Part I: The Shores Of Melancholia - review
Green Carnation - A Dark Poem Part I: The Shores Of Melancholia - review
Band
Green Carnation Release date
September 05, 2025 Tracklist
01. As Silence Took You02. In Your Paradise [feat. Ingrid Ose]
03. Me, My Enemy [feat. Ingrid Ose]
04. The Slave That You Are [feat. Grutle Kjellson]
05. The Shores Of Melancholia
06. Too Close To The Flame [feat. Henning Seldal]
A review by
musclassia September 15, 2025
That introduction isn’t intended to slight Leaves Of Yesteryear, the 2020 album that represented Green Carnation’s first studio activity since 2006; while I’m not sure the world really needed another cover of Black Sabbath’s “Solitude”, the re-recording of “My Dark Reflections Of Life And Death” from the debut album was masterful, while the original songs were all strong in their own ways. Nevertheless, the presence of only 3 original compositions on the album after such a long wait left many listeners, including myself, hungry for more, particularly given the beautiful charm of the title track. Well, fans should be sated for a while to come, as A Dark Poem Part I: The Shores Of Melancholia is but the first piece of a trilogy that sees the band glancing back across their discography while also striding further forwards.
The aforementioned “Leaves Of Yesteryear” was a tender, bright and melancholic song, and there was a general levity (to varying degrees) with each of the original songs on Leaves Of Yesteryear, but The Shores Of Melancholia gets off on a different footing. The opening riff of “As Silence Took You” is quintessentially doomy, and the song as a whole ventures towards doom metal as a genre in a way that Green Carnation have rarely done since their earliest albums, yet the song is imbued with the same proggy wistfulness so associated with the band’s work, courtesy of the sullen verses and the enduring evocative lure of Kjetil Nordhus’s vocals.
It's a solid introduction to the album, especially when it moves into a more driving chug for its bridge, and later a sumptuous instrumental passage with instantly memorable guitar hooks. This glimpse of faster pace is a prelude to the groovy, stompy rhythm of “In Your Paradise”, at least in the verses; the choruses and post-choruses are lighter and more melancholic. A particular standout moment is when the flute comes in after the second chorus, as this passage and the subsequent bridge takes my mind pleasantly to some of the sad-folk moments in Amorphis’s discography. The track has a prolonged mid-section, but there’s further goodies hidden for even after the chorus returns; following the final chorus, the song immediately segues into a sumptuous electronics-laden outro riff with a real authoritative grandeur to it, before one final reprise of the aforementioned bridge.
In spite of having one extra song, The Shores Of Melancholia is a couple of minutes shorter than its predecessor, but the songs here still have plenty of opportunity to expand and explore, with all of them between 5 and 10 minutes in length. The album itself has plenty of opportunity to explore stylistically, and it is the two tracks found in the middle of the tracklist that represent the greatest of extremes. “Me, My Enemy” channels a kind of mellow prog rock that resembles bands such as their prog compatriots in Airbag, or groups such as Riverside, but “The Slave That You Are” displays the band’s Norwegian heritage in a more stark fashion. Enslaved’s Grutle Kjellson provides guest vocals on a black metal-infused track that will initially have you wondering if you’re still listening to Green Carnation, even if harsh vocals have appeared in the group’s distant past. Remarkably, both songs find a way from their extremes to a place that slots naturally into a Green Carnation album; “The Slave That You Are” has a remarkably rich clean chorus from Nordhus to contrast Kjellson’s piercing shrieks, while the heavier sorrow in the second half of “Me, My Enemy” would have slotted right into A Blessing In Disguise.
While there may not be a song here that I find quite as resonant as “Leaves Of Yesteryear”, I feel that The Shores Of Melancholia is a significant step up from Leaves Of Yesteryear as a complete package. The closing duo of the album’s shortest (the title track) and longest songs (“Too Close To The Flame”) round the album out in winning fashion, the accessible catchiness yet rich melancholia of the former nicely contrasted by the driving, heavy prog of the latter. The prospect of two more albums in this vein should leave prog fans salivating, as the return of Green Carnation is now well and truly in its stride.
Written on 15.09.2025 by
Written on 15.09.2025 by
Hey chief let's talk why not Comments
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Posts: 6212
I gave this album a couple of listens and wrote it off as average. But your review makes me want to try listening to it again!
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Posts: 795  |
Posts: 795
Wow, if not for this review, I would have missed the return of Green Carnation. I remember I was quite fond of them in my teenage years. And wow, what a great album. All song memorable, emotional, very well composed. So glad it`s only first part. Pressing follow on spotify, to not miss the others.
---- the riddle wants to be...
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| Metal Spartan 78
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Posts: 37
Got to see them perform this album live in its entirety at ProgPower USA on Sept. 3. It was pretty good. Need to still give the album a spin though.
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Posts: 8264
“The Slave That You Are” is the only reason why this album is not in my super-favourites of the year. I don't like how Enslaved-ish it sounds (due to the guest vocals, I guess, but not exclusively), I don't think it belongs, and I always skip it when I listen to the album, which is otherwise splendid. I suppose I am in the minority on this one, but I am also in the minority of non-fans of Enslaved.
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Posts: 3649 Written by nikarg on 30.12.2025 at 00:04 I agree somewhat, and I am an Enslaved fan. I do not think it does not belong per se; I welcome one or two heavy songs in Green Carnation's albums, but I think the song is just rather uninspired. By far the low point of the album.
---- I hate bonus tracks
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Posts: 5722
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before but today my attention was drawn to the amusing fact that Enslaved's Grutle Kjellson happens to be singing on a song that is aptly titled "The Slave That You Are".  I.
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