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Line-up:
Kjetil Nordhus –
Vocals
Tchort – Guitars
Michael Krumins - Guitars
Stein Roger Sordal – Bass, Guitars
Kenneth Silden – Keyboards
Anders Kobro – Drums
Additional musician:
Bernt Moen - Keyboards, Piano on tracks
7 & 11.
Release Dates:
America: 23 March 2005
Europe: 28 February 2005
Tracklist:
1. The Quiet Offspring
2. Between The Gentle Small & The Standing Tall
3. Just When You Think It’s Safe
4. A Place For Me
5. The Everlasting Moment
6. Purple Door, Pitch Black
7. Childsplay Part I
8. Dead but Dreaming
9. Pile Of Doubt
10. When I Was You
11. Childsplay Part II
Read also:
Interview
with Tchort Website:
www.greencarnation.no Check
also:
Surprise Of March 2005 |
Green
Carnation is among the (few) bands whose new albums I’m always
eager to listen to. That’s mainly because of two reasons: first I
know that the record will fulfill high musical standards. Second, I
can never have a clue beforehand about what I’m going to listen to,
something that increases mystery, expectations and surprise. And I
can tell you that since their second magnificent album (“Light Of
Day...”) I have never been let down by the band. This time this
musical chameleon doesn’t change... shape as it did from the
second to the third album, but it definitely changes colours once
more.
The
approach of the new album is close to that of “Blessing In
Disguise”, in the sense that the band keeps playing a kind of
rhythmical, gloomy hard rock. But that’s the only common thing, as
Green Carnation is not one of those bands that would bear to keep
delivering the same things again and again. The band here adopts a
rather “optimistic” approach in its music with most of the songs
being up-tempo, yet emitting the usual sweet trademark melancholy of
the group. Yes, this time the whole thing is less “dark”, and
straighter. Green Carnation have their one foot on the legacy of
traditional 70’s hard and prog rock bands (from Led Zeppelin, UFO
and Deep Purple to Yes and Kansas), their other foot on modern brit
rock and bands like Muse and Radiohead and their mind on psychedelia
and thus to Pink Floyd and Procupine Tree. Now you have to combine
all these influences with the personal - undoubted - stigma of the
band in order to understand what we are talking about here.
As
mentioned the prism of the band here is less dark and pessimistic
and more optimistic, filling us only with the best of feelings.
Kjetil Nordhus seems to have developed his vocal skills
significantly, while the mastermind, Tchort, has emphasised and
worked a lot on both riffs (which are baptized in the 70’s
tradition) and solos (especially in that front he seems to have made
an exciting work). In general I think that the band represents the
ideotype of a modern rock group, and I don’t only mean it music-wise,
but also aesthetic-wise, in terms of lyrics and personality (by the
way the band has been very active in trying to gather funds for the
tsunami victims of SouthEast Asia). Look, in albums as such, it
doesn’t worth mentioning individual tracks, as there are no
fillers here. It’s in our hands to make them the big rock name
they deserve to be.
by Alex Savatianos 9/10 | 