Tracks:

Light of Day, Day of Darkness

Green Carnation features Tchort, formerly of Emperor. This CD isn't nearly as brutal as an Emperor album though. And it's really easy for me to pick out my favorite song: the first one. Well, the last one actually. Ok, so they are the same song. This CD clocks in at five seconds over one hour…and it's all one song. Coincidentally, that song name is the same as the album name, "Light of Day, Day of Darkness."

We start off very quietly and ethereal. There is a baby making some noise in there (I believe it is Tchort's son, whom the disc is apparently dedicated to), then the drums come in and some synths. Now we have clean vocals gently lying on top of the music.

A little after 3:30, the heavy guitars kick in briefly. Sounds really good so far, I like the production. Very clean and well mixed.

I like the way this sounds. It's heavy and melodic, but not all power metal sappy. Which isn't a slap in the face to power metal, it's just a variety is nice. I would like to hear a normal album full of songs from this group; hopefully there will be more from them in the future.

There is an Edge of Sanity album called "Crimson" that is all one song, but if recall it is only around 40 minutes long. Like this Green Carnation CD it was good, but how often are you going to sit through a song like that? We need things broken down into manageable bites. A beginning and an end, then another beginning and an end. To truly appreciate this CD you need to sit down and listen to it all the way through. And because of that I believe this CD will get far fewer listens than it deserves.

I always wanted to make an album like this when I was younger. I had this idea for a huge epic Viking saga. This was of course post-Bathory-"Hammerheart" and pre-black-metal-Viking-explosion. The Viking card has unfortunately been played to death.

You won't fatigue your ears too badly listening to this one hour song. There are lots of dynamic changes and quiet interlude passages that help to break things up and keep it from all sounding the same.

So here I am about 32 minutes in rocking along, getting into the groove. All of a sudden everything stops again (one of the aforementioned interludes) and there is quiet. Then you hear little techno noises creeping in. Now a wailing banshee woman has started singing by herself…and now she is accompanied by what sounds like a saxophone. Well isn't that peculiar. It's cool though. Almost has a Middle Eastern feel to it somehow.

Ok, the banshee lady is getting a bit out of hand. This part could be a little shorter. It's been going on for about 5 minutes so far. A short respite is nice, but this is so long that it is losing momentum fast. 6 minutes. 7 minutes. Finally! Back to the real music!

And so on and so forth it goes until the end. If you think you can get into an album with only one real long song on it, then I can recommend this CD to you. Remember, despite Tchort's past history this is not black metal. Not even close. But I do think that it is pretty damn good. Check it out.