Review by Shadowdoom9 (Andi) for Green Carnation - Journey to the End of the Night (2000)
It was only a few years before this review when I started listening to Green Carnation via one of the best doomy progressive metal albums, the one-hour single-track epic Light of Day, Day of Darkness. At that time, I was losing touch with the gothic/doom metal of bands like Katatonia, so I'm glad the first two Green Carnation albums have still stuck with me. Journey to the End of the Night is a great album despite not living up to the glory of its follow-up...
Their debut shows Green Carnation at their doomiest and can be considered progressive gothic doom, slow while filled with both darkness and lightness. There are 4 beautiful epics that each last 15-20 minutes, or at least that's what they should be thought of as. Not sure why they had to split parts of some epics into smaller tracks.
See, the opening intro "Falling Into Darkness" could've been better as part of the first epic instead of its own track. Still it's fine listening to on its own, starting soft with clean guitars, slow and steady drums, and operatic female chanting. Then the riffing and drumming speeds up, and the chanting intensifies before it all comes to a halt. Then the main part of the epic begins, "In the Realm of the Midnight Sun". There's a lot of female vocals in here, whether it's chanting, singing, or spoken word. That and the D-flat tuned riffing may remind some of Therion without the symphonics. Guest vocalist Atle Dorum eventually comes in, but I don't like his singing as much as I like their later vocalist Kjetil Nordhus. The drumming is slow with nothing diverse. This 16-minute epic (including intro) is nice and dark, but not one I would repeatedly listen to entirely.
Now we get to the more exciting epics, starting with the 18-minute centerpiece "My Dark Reflections of Life and Death". To get you geared up for the darkness, two minutes of ambience occurs before you can hear actual music. In all honesty, this is the kind of glory the band would have in Light of Day, Day of Darkness. Anyway, the melody fades in as the noise fades out, while the drumming starts to build up, going from doomy to mid-paced. And finally, the distorted guitar enters and we get some cool doomy riffing. Vocals don't start until the 5-minute mark, sung by Rx Draumtanzer. He's better than that other male vocalist from the previous track, but his singing being stretched out I'm not really into. Would be nice if we could get some death growls in place of that. Never mind that, he's great with his deep drama. Soon the heavy distortion drops, having more of that acoustic clean guitar, before fading into practically silence. That happens 10 minutes into the track, and you might think it's over, but then everything rises back up, including more of Rx's drama and some of the earlier female chanting. Different melodies in the music and vocals make that epic the true highlight of the album. The next epic "Under Eternal Stars" follows. There's more of that female singing and clean guitarwork, the latter quickly becoming distorted again for slow riffing. Once again, all this might remind you of a less symphonic Therion. Oh I almost forgot, that female vocalist is Vibeke Stene (ex-Tristania), and her high soprano singing makes me up for more of her former main band. The song is so dark and gothic, yet it becomes more melodic and progressive. Oh, and there's more of the male singing too. All in all, a fun highlight!
The title track is supposed to be a 20-minute epic, but for whatever reason, they split some parts into different tracks. The 11 and a half minute main part is doomy while sometimes speeding things up a bit, and there's some great singing too. Add in some death-growls, and we would've had a more progressive Trail of Tears. "Echoes of Despair" is an ambient interlude. It would've been OK if part of the epic, but on its own it's just sh*tty filler. The mix of speed and doom continues in "End of Journey", and some of the best vocals in the epic are found here. "Shattered" unleashes the last bit of fast riffing to close the album. Again, would've been better as part of the epic.
I think it's safe to say Green Carnation's debut is a solid start. All I ask is for Rx Draumtanzer to replace that guy in the first epic and not stretch out his singing, and for the epics to be indexed as full epics. Still this is great dark progressive gothic doom. If you wanna get into Green Carnation, start with their first two albums. You won't regret it....
Favorites: "My Dark Reflections of Life and Death", "Under Eternal Stars", "Journey to the End of the Night", "End of Journey"