GREEN CARNATION - The game with expectations

5. July 2020

Green Carnation

GREEN CARNATION - Das Spiel mit Erwartungen

The career of Green Carnation was anything but stringent. In 2020, we will (depending on the counting method) already experience its fifth incarnation. But it seems more stable than ever. With their new album "Leaves Of Yesteryear" the Norwegians put a bracket around their creative period since their debut 20 years ago. They are also working on the completion of a major project that has been lying idle for a long time. Together with singer Kjetil Nordhus we look into the band's past and future.

"What we lacked most of all was a clear direction," Kjetil Nordhus recalls the time shortly before Green Carnation's dissolution in 2006, when they had just released the acoustic album "The Acoustic Verses". "We didn't know what to do after that. It sounds a bit stupid, but in retrospect I think we all secretly thought we deserved more success than we had at that time. We were demotivated." Immense losses from a US tour disaster added to the emotional toll. "Ten, fifteen years later we can say: We had wrong expectations", Nordhus sums up: "You don't just need the right motivation, you need the right expectation. Otherwise you will be constantly disappointed."

Today Nordhus works as a football commentator for the radio and acts as a mentor for younger bands; in addition, he sings with the symphonic metallers Tristania. The goal of making Green Carnation a full-time job no longer exists, he explains. If only because none of the members can tour the planet 300 days a year. But: "We are extremely ambitious when it comes to our music - to release an album and present it live. We do not want to make any compromises. And if it means more work, in the end it will be worth it. Today we know much more precisely than we did then what we want. Back then we let our instincts drive us from album to album, now we're more analytical about it"

Just how clear the band's vision for "Leaves Of Yesteryear" was, is shown by the unusual decision to use a cover version and the re-recording of a track from the debut album "Journey To The End Of The Night" on the first studio album in 14 years, in addition to three brand new songs - although according to Nordhus there are four or five other new songs. He explains: "We chose 'My Dark Reflections Of Life And Death' and the Black Sabbath cover 'Solitude' because they added something to the album that the other songs couldn't give him. We wanted to build a bridge over the 20 band years since the first album. So it made sense to record an old song the way we would write it today

Green Carnation - Leaves of Yesteryear (Official Music Video)

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