lukretion Green Carnation’s 2000 debut Journey to the End of the Night was a difficult affair: a dark, hardly penetrable album, shrouded in pain and desperation, that only occasionally opened up to reveal the genius of Tchort’s musical ambition. Light of Day, Day of Darkness is where Tchort’s art finds its full expression, resulting in a masterpiece of dark progressive metal that any fan of cerebral, ambitious music should listen to at least once in their lifetime.

When you put this record in your CD player for this first time, two things jump at you: 1) the album duration is just above 60 minutes and 2) the album contains only one song. Yes, that’s right: Light of Day, Day of Darkness consists of one, 60-minute long song. Some of you will just write this off as pretentious crap – and there’s no denying that pretentious is a word not unheard of in the realms of progressive rock/metal. But Light of Day, Day of Darkness is the real deal. It’s where wild ideas and ambitions somehow, and miraculously, are pulled off.

For the occasion, Tchort gathered together a whole new set of musicians compared to the debut album: Anders Kobro (In The Woods…) on drums, Stein Roger Sordal on bass, Bjørn Harstad (also In The Woods…) on guitars and Kjetil Nordhus (Trail of Tears, then Tristania) on vocals, with Tchort himself also playing guitars. The list of guest musicians is also long, and includes vocalists Synne "Soprana" Larsen and Jan Kenneth Transeth (both In The Woods…), pianist Bernt Moen, saxophonist Arvid Thorsen, and producer Endre Kirkesola who played sitar, keyboards, strings and Hammond organ on the album. As it should be clear from the list of names and instruments, there is a lot of talent and colour on this record, with a myriad of instruments and sounds meticulously interwoven to realize Tchort’s vision.

The 60 minutes of the album can be roughly divided into two sections. The first 30 minutes develop around a slow-winding tempo and a repetitive, melancholic guitar riff that firmly root the song in gothic/doom territory. Kjetil Nordhus’ crooning vocals add a dramatic outlook to the music, with a beautiful, recurring melody that gives continuity to the song and creates a mellow, reflective mood, further heightened by interspersed clean guitar arpeggios and languid keyboard parts. The second part of the album is more experimental and progressive. It contains a long section with saxophone and female vocalizations, a children’s choir, some impassioned male vocals that reminds me of experimental band Manes, before the song ends in a gorgeous landscape of electronic sound effects with vocoder-filtered vocals.

Light of Day, Day of Darkness is an immersive listen. Although the monumental nature of this musical piece requires time and patience to be fully appreciated in all its nuances and details, strangely it also works well at an epidermal, instinctive level, as the gorgeous doomy riff and vocal melody that open the song return over and over throughout the composition, lulling the listener for its entire 60 minutes. The sheer ambition of this musical project is astonishing. It is even more impressive that Tchort managed to pull it off, creating an album that is filled with brilliant ideas, great performances and that works at multiple levels. I cannot say this of many records out there so if you are a fan of ambitious progressive music this is a “buy or die” kind of album.

lukretion Green Carnation’s first full-length album is a frustrating affair. There are glimpses of greatness that however struggle to emerge from a sea of meandering songwriting and underdeveloped arrangements. The Norwegian band is the brainchild of Tchort (aka Terje Vik Schei) who, after a past playing bass and guitar with Emperor and Satyricon (and a stint in prison), put together Green Carnation as an expression of a musical vision that combines elements of gothic metal, doom, avant-garde and progressive rock. For this ambitious experimental project, Tchort recruited an excellent score of musicians. The Botteri brothers (In The Woods…) played bass and guitars, while the relatively unknown Alf T. Leangel was recruited on drums. A score of guest vocalists (both male and female) also appeared on the album, including Vibeke Stene (Tristania) and Synne "Soprana" Larsen (In The Woods…). Meanwhile, Leif Wiese (Opus Forgotten) played violin on a handful of tracks.

The album is dedicated to the memory of Tchort’s late daughter and the music is inevitably dark, dense and desolate. Gothic and doom metal are suitable references, but Green Carnation are a strange creature that does not rest easily within the confines of a well-defined genre. Experimentation is the norm, and the album contains plenty of influences. Vaguely Floydian psychedelic progressions and sound effects abound. The song structures are fluid and dilated, and rarely follow standard repetitions of verses or choruses. A lot of the vocal parts are improvised and the various vocalists experiment with different styles, from soprano singing, to gothic crooning, to spoken parts. At times, the album reminds me of the most experimental side of Tristania. But Journey to the End of the Night is much more desperate and obscure, and less refined compared to Tristania and other similar gothic metal bands.

In truth, the record makes for an uncomfortable listen. The vocal improvisations are somewhat hit and miss. Often, the singing is devoid of any melodic structure and rather difficult to follow (also because sometimes the vocals are mixed really low). The irregular song structures are also challenging, especially when you have songs that exceed the 10-minute mark (half of the songs on the album do so) with plenty of tempo changes and new sections that provide very few reference points to the listener. At their worst, these songs come across as plodding and directionless (“Under Eternal Stars”). However, when Tchort’s genius finds the right spark, great things happen. It’s the case of “My Dark Reflections of Life and Death”, a fantastic piece of music that takes the listener on a dark, introspective journey interspersed with clean guitar arpeggios, repetitive doomy riffs, chilling vocal melodies, and ominous sound effects. Here the rough edges of Green Carnation’s music are met with the right arrangements and melodies, providing a magical combination that feels spontaneous and sophisticated at the same time.

Alas, “My Dark Reflections of Life and Death” stands alone as a marvellous beacon of light in an otherwise rather difficult and uncertain album. Ultimately, Journey to the End of the Night holds the same morbid fascination as a car crash: it’s hard not to star,e even if you do not like what you see. I feel the same towards this album: I struggle to penetrate its deep, complex musical armour and I can only enjoy it in small doses. But it possesses a special, dark aura that springs from genuine pain. And when this darkness finds the right voice, the music is sublime.

UMUR "A Blessing in Disguise" is the 3rd full-length studio album by Norwegian progressive metal act Green Carnation. The album was released through Season of Mist in June 2003. Green Carnation was formed in 1990 as a death metal act, but was initially a short lived project which ended in 1991. Guitarist Tchort then joined black metal act Emperor and played bass on their now legendary debut album "In the Nightside Eclipse (1994)". Tchort shortly after left Emperor and layed low for a couple of years before reuniting with some of the original Green Carnation members, who in the intermediate years had kept themselves busy in In the Woods.... The band´s debut full-length studio album "Journey to the End of the Night" was released in 2000.

The sophomore album "Light of Day, Day of Darkness" followed in 2001. Both of those relases feature a dark, progressive and doom/gothic metal style and both are concept releases (the latter solely features one hour long track). With "A Blessing in Disguise" the band have opted for a different songwriting approach and sound. The material on the 9 track, 56:19 minutes long album are still rooted in heavy metal, but the overall sound is predominantly a heavy progressive rock style, featuring "regular" rock instrumentation of guitars, bass, drums, and vocals, but also keyboards (predominantly vintage sounding). The tracks are melodic, relatively catchy, and while not overtly complex, they are still nicely intriguing and adventurous. The atmosphere is melancholic and dark, but not a pitch black type of darkness. Dark melancholy is a more fitting description. If I have to compare the sound on "A Blessing in Disguise" with another artist, I would pick the Dan Swanö led Nightingale as a reference. Although the two artists don´t sound alike, there are many similarities in the overall approach to playing heavy progressive rock.

The musicianship is strong on the album, with greatly skilled and organic instrumental performances, and a strong vocal performance by Kjetil Nordhus too. "A Blessing in Disguise" also features a powerful and organic sounding production, which suits the material well, so upon conclusion it´s a strong third album release by Green Carnation. Some fans of the first two releases may not be completely satisfied with the change of sound, but fans of heavy progressive rock featuring a melancholic atmosphere, should find this a greatly enjoyable release. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.

Sinkadotentree This was the first GREEN CARNATION album i purchased and at the time i was surprised at how accessible it was knowing the relationship this band originally had with IN THE WOODS... And certainly the album cover made me think this was probably going to be a dark and atmospheric record. Well this is even more mainstream than the previous album "Blessing In Disguise". This is sort of conceptual album about childhood experiences. The pictures of the band members in the liner notes are of when they were children. This is a good rocking album but man i feel that their first two recordings have completely spoiled me for this more straight-forward style of music.

Sinkadotentree I still remember the first time i heard the opening track of this album, i couldn't believe it was the same band who created "Journey To The End Of The Night" and "Light Of Day, Day Of Darkness". That first track is especially catchy and straight-forward, in fact it's my least favourite song on here. I would soon find out that this album does have it moments but it pales when compared to the previous two recordings. The final track "Rain" is my favourite and maybe that's not so surprising since the lyrics were taken from poems written for the "Light Of Day, Day Of Darkness" sessions. That darkness and edge has been scaled way back and the songs are shorter as well. So a good album for sure but for me it's not worth the 4 stars.