Green Carnation Open Epic Album Trilogy with Grand and Gloomy View from The Shores of Melancholia
Two decades removed from its initial inkling, the prog auteurs have written their masterpiece
While they quickly amassed a cult following behind one of the most ambitious epics in metal history, for the past 35 years, there was one tale – or three, to be exact – that continued to elude Green Carnation. That is, until now. With A Dark Poem, Part I:The Shores of Melancholia, the long-accomplished prog metal journeymen are finally setting sail on an epic album trilogy that will take fans to the highest peaks and darkest inner rooms.
“The songwriting is understated yet constantly captivating”, PROG writes in praise of The Shores of Melancholia, “while the individual tracks are all capable of shining under their own lights, The Shores of Melancholia works best as a whole. There’s an ebb and flow and a sense of cohesion even when they dip towards the extremes”.
“The Shores of Melancholia leans heavy into huge, tear-stained melodies and the lush analogue wash of old-school instruments”, writes Metal Hammer, “…the album’s core is dark, progressive wonder, as meticulously executed as ever”.
“I can’t say enough good things about this album”, says Sea of Tranquility, “…there is nothing I’ve heard this year that has provided a pleasant suprise quite like The Shores of Melancholia. A brilliant prog metal release that I will have on high rotation for years to come”.
A Dark Poem, Part I: The Shores of Melancholia is out now via Season of Mist Records
Listen
https://youtu.be/W09t-onM9-4
Order
https://orcd.co/greencarnationadarkpoem1
Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/prerelease/2o7sN7WqyIQDx96WvqtYUm?si=qoQVyW1ZR9e0cVH3FHPIIg
“This is a milestone in Green Carnation’s history, as we’re now finally able to share the first part of A Dark Poem with the world”, says the band’s vocalist Kjetil Nordhus. “The incredible amount of work behind this album, and the time it took to finish it on the level we wanted, makes it even sweeter to finally be here. This is indeed a proud moment for Green Carnation. We are looking forward to the journey ahead”.
Green Carnation will perform all of A Dark Poem live in their hometown of Kristiansand, Norway on September 12, 2026. During this once-in-a-lifetime 3-hour performance, the band will perform all three parts of their epic album trilogy in full, one after another, alongside some very special guests and the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra.
Get tickets
https://kilden.com/forestilling/green-carnation-3/
No matter how long or where the journey has taken them, Green Carnation have always sought to climb the highest mountains. While founded by Emperor’s former bassist Tchort in the early ’90s, the Norwegians quickly blazed their own trail through fields of symphonic doom, hard rock, acoustic plucking and progressive metal. The idea for an album trilogy stems back to the band’s very first opus, Light of Day, Day of Darkness, though the inspiration for A Dark Poem dates back even further to Arthur Rimbaud’s 1870 poem “Ophelia”.
“We like to purse things that are extremely ambitious”, says Nordhus. “Creating a trilogy of albums felt like it might be just out of our reach, which is what made us want to see if we could do it”.
Though only the beginning of the band’s latest epic journey, The Shores of Melancholia pulls a page from across Green Carnation’s storied 25-year discography. The album’s opening one-two punch landed a direct hit during the band’s set yesterday at ProgPower USA. “As Silence Took You” opens its sails with majestic, billowing leads before “In Your Paradise” chugs full steam ahead after the clarion call of a flute. “It makes you want to bang your head a little”, Nordhus says with a pleased smile. “I think melancholia suits Green Carnation very well”.
While navigated with the band’s familiar mastery, the view from The Shores of Melancholia is no palatial retreat. “The album reflects the troubled relationship between our personal lives and the external world”, Nordhus explains. “It’s about losing faith in the world we’ve come to know and how that leads to an inner dystopia”. Judgement day appears around every corner, steering them from the title track’s anxious war-torn tide to the Floydian whirlpools of paranoia that drench “Me, My Enemy”. The dark and stormy “The Slave That You Are” even claws back to Green Carnation’s budding days in extreme metal thanks to the blackened howl of Enslaved’s Grutle Kjellson.
“A lesson learned, now bridges burn”, Nordhus cries out with impassioned cleans, as if tied to the mast during the album’s bright and blazing closer “Too Close to the Flame”.
On A Dark Poem, Part I: The Shores of Melancholia, Green Carnation set sail on an epic journey into a dark night of the soul.
More praise for A Dark Poem, Part I: The Shores of Melancholia and Green Carnation
“…it does more than live up to the stratospheric expectations a band of this caliber has set for itself. Seldom is such a whirlwind of emotional earspank so effortlessly crammed into an album that clocks in at under 43 minutes, but Green Carnation have done exactly that. Again.” – Sonic Perspectives
“…Green Carnation are remarkable in their ability to craft albums that resonate with grace, grief and gravitas” – The Progressive Subway
“The romantic poets despaired over the state of the world as they saw it; Green Carnation despairs over a world whose reality has become unstable, contested, and weaponized” – Atmosfear Entertainment
“The band doesn’t try to impress with scale; they open themselves to being felt. And in doing so, they create something that doesn’t just sit in the background, but gets under your skin the quietest, most honest way” – Metal Temple
“A must-listen for anyone who values music at the highest artistic level” – KVLT Magazine
“So, after many years, Green Carnation has returned, and with quite possibly the best prog metal release I’ve heard so far this year” – The Progressive Aspect (Leaves of Yesteryear)
“Leaves of Yesteryear is totally Prog; unashamedly Scandinavian; and a wonderful return” – Ghost Cult
“Nearly twenty-four years after its release, Light of Day, Day of Darkness is a treasure trove of masterfully crafted and emotionally resonant progressive metal” – The Progressive Subway
“But perhaps the secret weapon of this group is Kjetil Nordhus, the main voice, who molds his wise baritone to capture all the emotional registers” – Passion of the Weiss
“If you don’t know Green Carnation, you’re doing yourself a disservice” – Angry Metal Guy
“The band’s trademark ethereal melancholy has been sorely missed” – Echoes and Dust
Tracklist:
1. As Silence Took You (7:12)
2. In Your Paradise (7:04) [WATCH]
3. Me, My Enemy (7:17)
4. The Slave That You Are (Featuring Grutle Kjellson of Enslaved) (6:16)
5. The Shores of Melancholia (5:38) [WATCH]
6. Too Close to the Flame (9:16)
Origin: Norway (NO)
Genre: Progressive Metal
FFO: Opeth, Paradise Lost, Pain of Salvation
For our full take on the music itself, read our in-depth album review of A Dark Poem, Part 1: The Shores of Melancholia where we break down the emotional power and progressive metal craft behind Green Carnation’s latest chapter.
Rebirth doesn’t occur overnight, nor can it exist in a vacuum.
Norway’s Green Carnation know all about starting over and working hard to achieve their shared goals, while overcoming adversity.
A Dark Poem, Part I: The Shores of Melancholia is Green Carnation’s latest album, the first in a trilogy that is sure to please longtime fans of the band’s epic, landmark release, Light of Day, Day of Darkness. The Shores of Melancholia feels of two worlds; a level of immediacy combined with this insistent feeling that, yes, something substantial is indeed brewing within Green Carnation’s creative minds.
“I think it is right to say we are returning to a long-form storytelling like Light of Day, Day of Darkness,” begins Green Carnation’s vocalist Kjetil Nordhus, “…but just done in a totally different way. It is not feasible to try and copy ourselves by doing another hour-long song or anything. It has already been done. But on the levels of epic-ness and storytelling I feel that A Dark Poemcertainly has those elements, within a three-album frame.”
The Shores of Melancholia is an album that’s sure to please both longtime fans of Green Carnation, as well as those new to the fold. The album opens up with two back-to-back bangers that incorporate the catchy rock arrangements that helped define the band’s Blessing in Disguise era. “As Silence Took You” and “In Your Paradise” are melodic, with strong hooks and choruses that welcome listeners to Green Carnation’s newfound heaviness.
The band’s bassist and songwriter, Stein Roger, explains, “A Dark Poem is a collection of songs that explore feelings of alienation in existential questions and down to the very inner self. The first part of the trilogy throws the listener into these questions from the first song. We hope to keep the audience trapped in there with us until the last second of the third album. The albums do vary in style, but always with the same basis. If we manage to keep the audience trapped within each album, we will manage to keep the audience trapped throughout the trilogy, which would be a great achievement.”
“Me My Enemy” starts out slow, anchoring a spacey, almost jazz fusion groove from drummer Jonathan Alejandro Perez with a bass line from Roger that’s impossible to deny. This song features some of the album’s most notably memorable lyrics, as well, as Nordhus delivers what’s perhaps the album’s definitive vocal performance. This song’s dark melancholy is juxtaposed against “The Slave That You Are,” an aggressive throwback to Green Carnation’s underground past that features guests vocals from Enslaved’s Grutle Kjellson.
Elsewhere, the album’s title track feels mysterious and moody, a song with a vibe that matches the evocative cover art from former Dark Tranquility guitarist Niklas Sundin. “The Shores of Melancholia” retains a chorus that’s striking and dynamic, thanks to the subtle keyboard playing of Kenneth Silden. Finally, “Too Close to the Flame” brings the album to a fittingly grand finale, clocking in at nearly 10 minutes, with some of the album’s most progressive arrangements. At the same time, however, the song breezes by with a natural sense of song craft that’s sure to make Green Carnation fans want to replay their journey to The Shores of Melancholia from the very beginning.
It isn’t as if Green Carnation need a lot of assistance retaining attention from their audience, of course, as evidenced by their triumphant appearance at the 2016 ProgPower Festival. This was a reunion born from tough times, a temporary hiatus that occurred in 2007 after a troublesome U.S. tour in support of their Acoustic Versesalbum.
Nordhus asserts, “since coming back in 2016, the extremely positive feedback from fans, record buyers, concert audiences, music writers, reviewers and the metal community in general has been very motivating for us, first to continue after 2017, and then to sign the very ambitious record deal with Season of Mist, which includes the trilogy project.” He continues, “I think, with A Dark Poem, we are doing something that will be a milestone in our career – challenging for ourselves, challenging for our fans, just the way Green Carnationhas always been.”
Those fans have always possessed a profoundly emotional connection to Green Carnation, one that feels frank, unique and dedicated. The collective grief associated with the aforementioned Light of Day, Day of Darkness today almost feels like a legacy of sorts – cathartic energy that continues to connect listeners to the music of Green Carnation.
Kjetil and Stein Roger seem to be in agreement with this observation, admitting, “the very strong emotional connection is most certainly a connection we do feel when releasing new music, at every live show, and in the time in between. With Light of Day, Day of Darknessbeing an album that connected so strongly to so many people, there has never been a time where the band’s legacy has separated with this, and – in different forms – we have continued to explore many of the same themes as in that album, although maybe not that specific.”
The Shores of Melancholia and this idea of a multi-album series is one that’s been kicking around within the Green Carnation camp for years. There was even talk, at one point, of the band releasing a concept release titled The Rise and Fall of Mankind. Nordhus is quick to distinguish this first entry in A Dark Poem as dedication for the future, however, saying, “I think it is fair to say that the idea of a trilogy was born then, yes, but The Rise and Fall of Mankind never materialized. Although there might have existed themes and ideas at the time with The Rise and Fall of Mankind in mind, A Dark Poem is composed with 100 percent focus on writing new material that fit together as a monumental piece of music in three parts.”
The vocalist continues to discuss the timeline for this new album’s songwriting roadmap, informing us that, “it began before ‘The World Without a View’ [single], AND The Leaves of Yesteryear to be totally honest. When signing the new deal with Season of Mist in 2017, we had the trilogy project in mind, and it was part of the reason that we did sign a five-album deal with the label at the time. We knew that we needed time to do the trilogy project and planned to release one album plus re-launching The Acoustic Verses in the process, to give us enough time.”
If 2020’s Leaves of Yesteryear was the resounding call for Green Carnation’s aforementioned rebirth, then The Shores of Melancholia is the album where, from the point of view of both Kjetil and Stein Roger, the band lay it all out on the proverbial table. And that includes returning to the live stage.
“I can promise you that the ambitions are sky high musically,” reply both men. “With this trilogy we have put in an extreme amount of work over a very long period of time, and we are confident that this will be a milestone in Green Carnation’s career.” They go on to admit that, “what happens live is not only up to us. But by being a very active band with releasing not less than three albums in 2025 and 2026, we are certainly hoping to be a band that many people want to see live, and that concert and festival promoters want to book. We are already working extremely hard on The Shores of Melancholia live set, so we will be ready!”
Current line-up
Kjetil Nordhus – Vocals
Tchort – Guitar
Bjørn Harstad – Guitar
Stein Roger Sordal – Bass
Endre Kirkesola – Keyboards
Jonathan Alejandro Perez – Drums
Recording line-up
Kjetil Nordhus – Vocals
Bjørn Harstad – Guitar, Effects
Stein Roger Sordal – Bass, Guitars, Keyboards
Endre Kirkesola – Keyboards, Synthesizers, Organs, Effects
Jonathan Alejandro Perez – Drums
Guest Musicians
Ingrid Ose – Flute on “In Your Paradise” & “Me My Enemy”.
Grutle Kjellson (Enslaved) – Harsh Vocals on “The Slave That You Are”.
Henning Seldal – Percussion on “Too Close to the Flame”.
Production Credits
Recorded at DUB Studio in Kristiansand, Norway
Produced by Endre Kirkesola, Stein Roger Sordal & Kjetil Nordhus.
Sound Engineering by Endre Kirkesola.
Mixed by Endre Kirkesola & Bjørn Harstad
Mastered by Lawrence Mackrory
Cover Art
Niklas Sundin (https://www.nsundin.com)
Photography
Lars Gunnar Liestøl
Bio
George Pacheco
Order
https://orcd.co/greencarnationadarkpoem1
Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/prerelease/2o7sN7WqyIQDx96WvqtYUm?si=qoQVyW1ZR9e0cVH3FHPIIg
Follow Green Carnation
Bandcamp: https://greencarnationsom.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GreenCarnationNorway
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/green2carnation/
Twitter (X): https://x.com/Green2Carnation
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2vfEaTADayEniT7xbG-XCA
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1ZaJhNBAhJ3HjPsWiB9sDc
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/artist/green-carnation/72866964
Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/artist/8192
Tidal: https://tidal.com/browse/artist/23079
Available Formats
Digital Download
CD Digipack with Slipcase
12″ Vinyl Deluxe Gatefold (Black)
12″ Colored Vinyl Deluxe Gatefold (Gold with silver splatters)
