Green Carnation A Dark Poem Part I: The Shores of Melancholia Review
Green Carnation
A Dark Poem Part I: The Shores Of Melancholia
Season of Mist Records
2025
I first stumbled into the world of Green Carnation back in 2005, when my pal, TJ dropped his review of “The Quiet Offspring”. We’d just landed on The End Records’ PR list, and that album came spinning in like a gift from the Gods of the void. I remember pressing play and thinking here was a band that felt like a sleeker, more accessible cousin to Paradise Lost. There were also shades of Lake of Tears in there, another group carved into my personal pantheon. And yet, after that album, Green Carnation slipped from my mind, and I forgot about them.
Now here we are, a decade or 2 later, standing on cusp of a new release: “A Dark Poem Part I: The Shores of Melancholia”. The title alone feels like a curtain raising on something that lurks only in shadows. This is the opening act of a promised trilogy, and longtime fans have every reason to clamor with excitement. My own history with the band is patchy at best, but listening now, I hear a group that has evolved, sharpened, and arrived at what feels like their full potential. Or at least, that’s what it sounds like to me.
The press release throws around the word “Prog”, and yes, the band has graced the ProgPower stage in Atlanta, but that label doesn’t sit right with what I’m hearing. This isn’t polished, formulaic and boring Prog, it’s something more elusive. There’s an Avant-garde heart beating here, draped in Doom and Atmospheric Metal, with ghostly brushstrokes of Black Metal flickering at the edges. Those harsher moments don’t dominate; they’re used more for texture rather than foundation.
What makes this album grip so tight is its sheer depth. The songs are not content to simply exist; they pull you in, dragging you through twisting corridors of half-remembered dreams. This isn’t background music at all. This is a record that demands your attention, a labyrinth of sound where sorrow and truth intertwine. Melodies ache, hooks cut deep, and every piece feels deliberate, synchronized, and impossibly cohesive.
At six tracks and forty-two minutes, it may look lean on paper, but there’s no shortage of substance. Each song is a world to itself, and to single one out feels almost unfair. Still, if pressed, the title track “The Shores of Melancholia” rises like a monolith, as does the opener “As Silence Took You”, both shimmering with power and fragility in equal measure.
I find myself hungry for the next chapter in this trilogy, curious to see what landscapes the band will carve from their dark imaginations. Even without having heard every page of their history, I can say this might just be Green Carnation’s strongest statement yet.