Green Carnation

The Quiet Offspring (The End)
By Craig Regala

Let’s face it: This post black metal prog/pomp/rock shit is melodramatic, and constructed wonderfully for emotional release in the way classically “romantic” art is supposed to be. No music is “reality,” it’s a reflection of emotional impulses to situations/feeling filtered and barfed out as a metaphoric response to human’s existence in the world. Although a bit more “straight rock” than say, Opeth, Green Carnation mine a similar tradition and do so effectively. Shit, I’m no metal guy, but I know when the cheese is spoiled, and this ain’t.

You may recognize Tchort; he’s been around as bass player for Emperor after he left the original Green Carnation (the other guys went on to record three records as In The Woods), and current member of black metal as black metal unit Carpathian Forest. As he reupped with the other guys, out pops this “Cathedral plays ‘Tubular Bells’ via Pink Floyd” disc. Although they use some of the same tools, tempoes, and elements of the black/Goth/metal fusion, these guys avoid the “I’m a vampire, she’s a vampire, wouldn’tcha like to be a vampire, too?” moves of those grave diggers. At times, it’s a frost-ridden take on classicist late ’70s album rock. I can’t lie, there’s DNA here from Europe and Starcastle, what of it? It’s used well, just as Tiamat and Paradise Lost used ’80s new wave/synthpop and the exotic Dead Can Dance ethno-mix. When it comes down to it, this stuff has a buncha familiar-sounding bits put together in a way which has familiar resonances, but is not deferring to a specific model. Cool.
(www.theendrecords.com)