Green Carnation

All Music Guide:

Green Carnation was formed in 1990 in Norway by X-Botteri, Cristopher Botteri, Tchort, and Anders Kobro. They found singer Richart Olsen and began to play around their homeland. The band managed to release a demo before Tchort left to join black metal superstars Emperor; Olsen left soon after and the band decided to disband. The remaining members reformed as In the Woods... and went on to have a successful black metal career of their own, but by 1998 the original members decided to re-form the band with new drummer Alf T. Leangel. The debut release, mostly written by Tchort, finally made it to stores in late 2000. Although Tchort still managed to start the brutal thrash metal band Blood Red Throne between albums, by 2001 he was back in the studio recording Green Carnation's sophomore effort, Light of Day, Day of Darkness. A high concept project, the entire album was actually one song that lasted an hour, jumping between black metal, psychedelic rock, and goth metal.

Wikipedia:

Green Carnation is a band from Kristiansand, Norway formed in 1990 that has created songs from both the progressive rock and progressive metal genres. Some also describe their music as art rock. Green Carnation's trend of music has continuously become less and less heavy after every release; from straight forward death metal, to a gothic metal/doom metal/progressive metal sound, to a melancholic hard rock-sounding form of progressive rock and in 2006, went as far as to releasing an entirely acoustic album Acoustic Verses.

Biography

Formation and early years (1990-2001)

Green Carnation is the creation of former Emperor bass player Terje Vik Schei (a.k.a. Tchort), founded before Tchort joined Emperor in 1990. It eventually split, with the remaining members X-Botteri, Cm:Botteri and Anders Kobro creating avant-garde metal band In the Woods....

Green Carnation's first album, Journey to the End of the Night, wasn't recorded until 1998 and was released in October 2000 through German record company Prophecy Productions. The release was a folk inspired doom metal album. The Botteri brothers, Alf Tore Rasmussen and Geir Solli left the band after recording the debut album, and then Anders Kobro from In The Woods... joined up with Tchort and them two made the foundation and arrangements for the whole song that became Light of day, day of Darkness. (almost 2 years of working), they then did a pre-production in dub-studio with Endre Kirkesola helping out with the bassguitar, Tchort did the guitars and Anders Kobro the drums. This was enough to convince Bjørn Harstad (In The Woods... guitarist), Stein Roger Sordal (Soxpan ITW... live bassplayer), Kjetil Nordhus (vocals) and Bernt Andrè Moen (Shining NO) to join the band in time for the actual recording for the album Light of Day, Day of Darkness, a single track, 60-minute progressive metal epic again recorded in Dub-studio. The album was released in 2001 via Prophecy Productions in Europe, whereas the US release was handled by The End Records. The album is highly regarded, and is one of the longest single songs in metal.

Genre branching and new identity (2001-2006)

Following this release, the band released their 2003 full-length album A Blessing in Disguise through French record label Season Of Mist. The album consisted of a blend of progressive metal/rock elements, slightly gothic tinges, and hard rock elements and brought the band into another musical terrain. Bjørn Harstad left the band after the recording of A Blessing, a decision he made due to his work. Bjørn was a unique guitarist and soundpainter, his style cant be replaced. Unfortunnally Bernt Moen decided to quit the band due to obligations with other artists and soloprojects after the Blessing in Disguise tour 2003. Bernt Moen is also truly a pure genius of a musician. He do also teach music students at the University in Agder.

Two years later the band followed up with the album The Quiet Offspring,now introducing Kenneth Silden on keyboard and Michael Crummins on guitar again released through Season Of Mist in Europe and The End Records in the US. This album brought the band into an even more hard rock style of music and is seen by many to be their most commercial sounding release. Then the decision to replace Anders Kobro with pop/rock drummer Tommy Jackson so GC could try to become the next big nr 1 hit band. (A Kobro is a proud metalmusician and will never change that). The band then decided to do bigger things, leaving the metalscene altogether. Drummer Tommy Jackson was a natural choice since he have been a long time friend and partner of Stein Sordals other projects, Soxpan, Sordal and Plutho ++) The attempt to make Green Carnation a hit-making money band did not happen after all. Later in 2005, the band released an EP entitled The Burden Is Mine... Alone. This EP marked the debut of bassist/guitarist Stein Roger Sordal as a lead vocalist in the band, with the song that shares the name of the EP and the song was written and performed entirely by him. This release also worked as a taste of what was to come with their following full-length album..

Early 2006 marked the release of their fifth full-length The Acoustic Verses. This album was yet another stylistic shift for the band. On the album, the band played all acoustic instruments, showing off a softer, warmer style for the band while retaining the progressive and darker feels they established since their debut.

Worth mentioning is that Green Carnation is and will always have its roots in the metal-scene....

The parting, present times, and the future (2007-Present)

According to Tchort's writings in the booklet to The Acoustic Verses, Green Carnation's next studio release is going to be the second part of the "The Chronicles of Doom" trilogy, which began with Light of Day, Day of Darkness, and is going to be titled The Rise and Fall of Mankind.

In February 2007 Green Carnation recorded their second live DVD, A Night Under the Dam, where they played the entire 'Acoustic Verses'-album as well as a few other songs. The DVD was recorded under a 30-meter-tall dam in the Norwegian mountains and was the last release to be seen by the bands current line-up.

On August 17, 2007, Terje Vik Schei announced that due to the poorly organized American tour and subsequent financial and motivational losses, the line up of Green Carnation had split up. ( [1], [2]). Tchort stated that he would

"continue writing music under the name Green Carnation, but probably will never play live again with the band."

The expected album, The Rise and Fall of Mankind, has been postponed with no current release date, but Tchort has said that the album will be released sometime in the future.