Norwegian progressive metal band GREEN CARNATION are now streaming the remastered, 15th anniversary edition of their 2006 album, ‘The Acoustic Verses!’ This anniversary edition, remastered by Maor Appelbaum, contains three bonus tracks and has brand new cover artwork by Lukasz Jaszak. This is the first time that ‘The Acoustic Verses’ is released on vinyl.
Vocalist Kjetil Nordhus comments: “This is a big day for GREEN CARNATION. Having wanted this album to be released on vinyl for years, we are very proud to be able to share it with new and old fans today. We put a lot of effort into making this tasteful both visually and sound wise, and hope people will appreciate that and enjoy the whole package.”
‘The Acoustic Verses (remastered)’ will be out on December 3, via Season of Mist. Pre-orders are still available in the shop HERE. Pre-save the album HERE.
GREEN CARNATION previously announced several special acoustic shows in 2022, to celebrate the release of ‘The Acoustic Verses Remastered’. Find a full list of shows below.
29 Jan 22 Vennesla (NO) Kulturhuset 01 Feb 22 Hamburg (DE) Knust 02 Feb 22 Copenhagen (DK) Hotel Cecil 03 Feb 22 Stockholm (SE) Södra Teatern 04 Feb 22 Helsinki (Fi) Ääniwalli 05 Feb 22 Hurum (NO) WLR 18 Mar 22 Kristiansand (NO) Kilden teater og konserthus
The artwork for ‘The Acoustic Verses (remastered)’ was created by Lukasz Jaszak.
Tracklist: 1. Sweet Leaf (04:39) 2. The Burden is Mine… Alone (03:15) 3. Maybe? (05:03) 4. Child`s Play, part 3 (03:31) 5. Alone (03:44) 6. 9-29-045 (15:30) 7. Six Ribbons (03:12) 8. Transparent Me (05:03) 9. High Tide Waves (07:49) 10. Child`s Play, part 3 (live version) (03:59) Total: 0:55:45
Norwegian progressive metal band GREEN CARNATION have announced several special acoustic shows in celebration of the remastered edition of ‘The Acoustic Verses’. The first concert will take place on January 29, 2022 in Vennesla, Norway and the final show happen in the band’s hometown Kristiansand, on March 18, 2022. Find a full list of shows below.
Vocalist Kjetil Nordhus comments: “This is something we have wanted to do for a long time, and after having all live shows cancelled and postponed the last couple of years, we are looking forward to this even more. We do have experience doing acoustic live shows, with the most famous concert being Under The Dam in 2006. These concerts will of course be in a different format, but the band will be working very hard to give the audience a unique experience on this tour. There will be songs never played live before, old songs rearranged and of course an extra focus on the songs from ‘The Acoustic Verses’.”
The 15th anniversary edition of ‘The Acoustic Verses’ is remastered by Maor Appelbaum, contains three bonus tracks and has brand new cover artwork by Lukasz Jaszak. This is the first time that ‘The Acoustic Verses’ is released on vinyl. The album will be out on December 3, via Season of Mist. Pre-orders are live in the shop HERE.
GREEN CARNATION acoustic shows 29 Jan 22 Vennesla (NO) Kulturhuset 01 Feb 22 Hamburg (DE) Knust 02 Feb 22 Copenhagen (DK) Hotel Cecil 03 Feb 22 Stockholm (SE) Södra Teatern 04 Feb 22 Helsinki (Fi) Ääniwalli 05 Feb 22 Hurum (NO) WLR 18 Mar 22 Kristiansand (NO) Kilden teater og konserthus
GREEN CARNATION have previously released a lyric video for the song “My Greater Cause”, (Part I of “9-29-045”), which can be heard at the official Season of Mist Youtube Channel HERE.
The artwork for ‘The Acoustic Verses (remastered)’ was created by Lukasz Jaszak.
Tracklist: 1. Sweet Leaf (04:39) 2. The Burden is Mine… Alone (03:15) 3. Maybe? (05:03) 4. Child`s Play, part 3 (03:31) 5. Alone (03:44) 6. 9-29-045 (15:30) 7. Six Ribbons (03:12) 8. Transparent Me (05:03) 9. High Tide Waves (07:49) 10. Child`s Play, part 3 (live version) (03:59) Total: 0:55:45
Norwegian progressive rock icons GREEN CARNATION will be releasing a remastered, 15th anniversary edition of their acoustic album, ‘The Acoustic Verses!’ This anniversary edition, remastered by Maor Appelbaum, contains three bonus tracks and has brand new cover artwork by Lukasz Jaszak. This is also the first time that ‘The Acoustic Verses’ is released on vinyl.
In celebration of this release, the band has also released a lyric video for the song “My Greater Cause,” (Part I of “9-29-045”), which can be viewed at the official Season of Mist Youtube Channel HERE.
Vocalist Kjetil Nordhus comments: “This is something that both we and our fans have been waiting for a long time! ‘The Acoustic Verses’ is a stand out album in our catalogue, and we hope people will enjoy the vinyl, with its extra songs, new and beautiful cover art, the upgraded sound and not least, the vinyl!”
‘The Acoustic Verses (remastered)’ will be out on December 3, via Season of Mist. Pre-orders are live in the shop HERE.
The artwork for ‘The Acoustic Verses (remastered)’ was created by Lukasz Jaszak.
Tracklist: 1. Sweet Leaf (04:39) 2. The Burden is Mine… Alone (03:15) 3. Maybe? (05:03) 4. Child`s Play, part 3 (03:31) 5. Alone (03:44) 6. 9-29-045 (15:30) 7. Six Ribbons (03:12) 8. Transparent Me (05:03) 9. High Tide Waves (07:49) 10. Child`s Play, part 3 (live version) (03:59) Total: 0:55:45
By early 2006, Norway’s GREEN CARNATION had released four studio albums and an EP in five years — including their breakout masterwork, 2001’s Light of Day, Day of Darkness. Albums of such magnitude generally foretell some type of creative cliff is around the bend, but the Norwegians wisely kept updating their sound with more atmospheric and progressive rock elements on the ensuing A Blessing in Disguise (2003) and The Quiet Offspring (2005). This creative direction ensured Light of Day, Day of Darkness would forever stand alone and that GREEN CARNATION was not a band bound to convention.
This brings us to 2006’s TheAcoustic Verses, an album — as the title suggests — of completely acoustic originals. Buoyed by the previous year’s The Burden is Mine…Alone EP and the eponymous song bearing its name, TheAcoustic Verses found GREEN CARNATION near the peak of their creative powers during their 2000s iteration. Now 15 years removed from its release, TheAcoustic Verses is getting the vinyl reissue treatment from Season of Mist, including new artwork from Polish graphic artist Lukasz Jaszak, an updated tracklisting and three bonus cuts.
According to vocalist Kjetil Nordhus, TheAcoustic Verses was born from the band’s never-ending pursuit of something new. Even with regular pleas from fans to recreate the hallowed sounds of Light of Day, Day of Darkness, GREEN CARNATION was more interested in the “next step.” Come 2006, that next step was stripped-down music played on acoustic instruments.
“I think [founding member/guitarist] Tchort thought we didn’t know where to go next,” says Nordhus. “We had time to discover all the areas within our creative scope except for the acoustic landscapes. Especially Light of Day, Day of Darkness, which is a ‘more is more’ album. It sounds strange, but it was a natural step for us because it was an area we hadn’t gone into before as a band. We had different band members that were more or less acquainted with the acoustic ideas. But for the band as a whole, it was a new challenge. It was fresh for us. For some strange reason, but I can understand, I think many people found a lot of atmospheres from Light of Day, Day of Darkness in TheAcoustic Verses, even though it’s the most different sounding album when you listen to it at first. TheAcoustic Verses is like a stripped-down essence of what GREEN CARNATION is or was at that time.”
At seven songs, TheAcoustic Verses features songwriting contributions from nearly every member of GREEN CARNATION. Tchort provided “Sweet Leaf” and “Alone,” while Nordhus chipped in with “Maybe?” Bassist Stein Roger Sordal penned not only “The Burden is Mine…Alone” but also the 15-minute epic “9-29-045.” “Child’s Play Part 3” (a continuation of the “Child’s Play” story from The Quiet Offspring) was written by guest cellist Bernt Andrè Moen, and album closer “High Tide Waves” was a joint effort between guitarist Michael S. Krumins (music) and drummer Tommy Jackson (lyrics).
The wealth and disparity of songwriting ideas proved to be a double-edged sword GREEN CARNATION. While it made TheAcoustic Verses an album of remarkable depth and progression, it put the band at a creative crossroads. Then, the following year, Tchort dissolved GREEN CARNATION after a difficult North American tour. It also put his plans for the sequel to Light of Day, Day of Darkness, The Rise and Fall of Mankind (which was the intended second part of his The Chronicles of Doom trilogy) on the backburner.
“It was a challenge for us to fit the new, acoustic sound into what we were doing,” says Nordhus. “I can’t remember too many albums that have nearly all band members as songwriters and lyricists, which made it very much a band concept. But, after TheAcoustic Verses, we certainly didn’t know what to do. There wasn’t a natural step for us to take at that point. There’s a lot of reasons why we decided to split up — that was one of them.”
GREEN CARNATION reformed in 2014 and proceeded to rejoin the European and American festival circuit for special appearances, including a full airing of Light of Day, Day of Darkness at the 2016 ProgPower USA festival. In 2020, they released the highly anticipated follow-up to TheAcoustic Verses, Leaves of Yesteryear, an album that drew immediate praise from fans and critics.
“We knew that people wanted us to come back,” says Nordhus. “That wasn’t something new. But the emotions of it all, during that first concert when we came back, we saw several people crying in the audience, we could see how much it meant to people and we were all a bit surprised. There’s a lot of love for the band out there. We needed to be entirely sure that after so many years that we released an extremely good album. It wouldn’t make sense to do something halfway. We took quite a lot of time, wrote a lot of material and set a high bar for our ideas. We tried to gather all the best things we did previously but adding 15 years of life and musical experience.”
Nordhus hints at some “significantly adventurous” plans for GREEN CARNATION in addition to continuing the promotional push for Leaves of Yesteryear. However, assembling the The Acoustic Verses reissue provided a moment of pause and reflection when GREEN CARNATION was writing, recording and touring at a breakneck pace. A decade-and-a-half after the release of TheAcoustic Verses, Nordhus says the band is in a significantly better frame of mind and appreciates what they have in each other.
“Those were some hectic years. It was such a short period of time. You look at what we did and it’s like, ‘Oh, wow!’ We did concert DVDs, singles, full lengths…everything. Because of the experience we all have, it feels much more comfortable to play together. We’re more true to what we want to do. We don’t necessarily have the aim of headlining the Wacken festival. We’re happy with our situation in that we have people all over the world who are interested in what we’re doing, and we mean something to them. Not everyone can say that. We want to do stuff that gives us energy and want to continue playing. Economy and money are not our driving force — it never was in the first place. We’re extremely ambitious when it comes to making music together and our live shows are better than ever. I don’t think we talked about those things 15 years ago.”
Original recording line-up: Tchort – Guitars (acoustic) Stein Roger Sordal – Bass, Vocals (backing), E-bow, Vocals (lead) Kjetil Nordhus – Vocals (lead), Vocals (backing) Michael S. Krumins – Guitars (acoustic), Theremin Tommy Jackson – Drums, Percussion Kenneth Silden – Piano, Mellotron Bjørn Harstad – Guitars
Original recording Studio: Engineered and mixed at Brown Sound Studios, except track 4, mixed at Jailhouse Studios. Violins, viola and cello recorded at Jailhouse Studios. Drums recorded at Dub Studios. Mastered at Lynor.
Norwegian progressive metal outfit GREEN CARNATION have teamed up with PROG magazine for the premiere of their brand new single titled “The World Without a View”. Composed, arranged and recorded during the Covid-19 lockdown, the band has dedicated their new single to their fans. Listen to the track HERE.
Vocalist Kjetil Nordhus comments: “This is a big day for Green Carnation, being able to share a new song that wasn’t planned at all before Covid-19. We managed to compose this in the strictest lockdown period in Norway in 2020, and then record it in the studio this autumn. The music video is made by Costin Chioreanu, and is a wonderful art video, showing how he made our cover art. We would like to thank Costin for his amazing work. The song and the video are both big bonuses this year for us, and hopefully also for our fans.”
2020 was going to be a big year for the band, releasing and supporting their first album for 14 years via Season of Mist in May and celebrating their 20th anniversary as recording artists. Approaching the end of a devastating year for the live music industry the band is happy for the opportunity to release new material much earlier than planned.
“The World Without a View” is a near 10 minute epic and is a digital release only. The recording has been financed by the band and is available for purchase via the band’s Bandcamp page HERE.
“The World Without a View” is recorded and mixed by Endre Kirkesola in DUB Studio, mastered by Maor Appelbaum Mastering. Cover design by Costin Chioreanu.
Tracklist 1.The World Without a View (09:34) (buy HERE)
Norwegian progressive metal act GREEN CARNATION has shared a brand new single, “The World Without a View,” via Bandcamp! Composed, arranged and recorded during the Covid-19 lockdown, the band has dedicated their new single to their fans. “The World Without a View” is a near 10 minute epic and is a digital release only. The recording available now via the band’s Bandcamp page HERE.
In addition, yesterday the band hosted a live play-through, where the Fans could tune in and live chat with the band HERE.
“This piece of music is made for our fans who had been looking forward to see us live this year and to all those who have graced us with their love and support through the years“, says founding member and guitarist Tchort.
2020 was going to be a big year for the band, releasing and supporting their first album for 14 years via Season of Mist in May and celebrating their 20th anniversary as recording artists. Approaching the end of a devastating year for the live music industry the band is happy for the opportunity to release new material much earlier than planned.
Vocalist Kjetil Nordhus adds: “We have managed to be creative in a difficult period for the band, and it feels good to be able to use the lockdown to do something positive.”
“The World Without a View” is recorded and mixed by Endre Kirkesola in DUB Studio, mastered by Maor Appelbaum Mastering. Cover design by Costin Chioreanu.
‘Leaves of Yesteryear’ was released on on May 8 via Season of Mist and can be ordered HERE.
Tracklist 1.The World Without a View (09:34) (buy HERE)
Following a successful launch over the summer, Metal Injection’s virtual Slay at Home fest will be returning as a monthly installment! In addition to a set from GREEN CARNATION, members of GARGOYL and CARNATION will each be performing cover collaborations.
Norwegian progressive rock icons GREEN CARNATION will be supporting their 2020 release, ‘Leaves of Yesteryear,’ which can purchased HERE. Watch the video for the title track HERE.
Old school death metal revivalists CARNATION will be supporting their freshly released full-length, ‘Where Death Lies,’ which is available for purchase and streaming HERE. Watch the video for “Sepulcher of Alteration” HERE.
Experimental progressive grunge act GARGOYL will be supporting their upcoming debut full-length, which is due on October 9! Pre-order it HERE. Watch the video for “Plastic Nothing” HERE.
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