Progressive RockMetal
Season of Mist · 4 September 2026
«Unconditional Artificial Chemistry» kicks off with a mid-tempo groove where Stein Roger Sordal’s bass steps to the front and the guitar riff never lets up throughout the track. Kjetil Nordhus sings it restrained, never pushing his register, and the chorus has the same melodic shape the Norwegians were already writing twenty years ago, with Endre Kirkesola’s keyboards filling in the gaps. It’s the first of four tracks with which Green Carnation close out the trilogy they opened in September 2025, based on Arthur Rimbaud’s «Ophélie».
The title track alternates acoustic passages with a marching drum beat and falling chords, and this time it’s Sordal singing rather than Nordhus. «Broken Souls, Common Enemies» is the most varied of the four: guest flautist Ingrid Ose opens a calm passage with a flavour of seventies Pink Floyd, a harpsichord shows up, and the track then breaks into raw vocals and a spoken-word fragment before the record’s only guitar solo.
That’s where the band record ends, though. The fourth track, «A Dark Poem – Orchestral Suite», takes up 16 minutes and 47 seconds of the 38 the whole thing runs, and has no distortion, no bass, and no vocals from the band at all: it’s played by the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra and the city opera’s choir, with Ose returning and Rimbaud’s verses recited throughout. The piece is well put together and the gesture makes sense within the story, but it leaves the trilogy’s final chapter with three band songs and just over twenty minutes of electric music.
Green Carnation are on the bill for Be Prog! My Friend, taking place on 25 and 26 September at La Carpa del Poble Espanyol in Barcelona, headlined by Soen and The Ocean.
Rating: 8/10
Text by Guillem Cardós