Album art by Niklas Sundin
Style: Progressive metal, gothic metal (mostly clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Katatonia, Pain of Salvation, Anathema, Opeth, Paradise Lost, In the Woods…, Amorphis
Country: Norway
Release date: 3 April 2026
Some albums feel familiar from the first spin. Listening to them is like slipping on a well-worn favourite sweater, or tracing the rings of an aged tree stump. Like some kind of reverse déjà vu, this experience often heralds the discovery of albums that will go on to become staples in my library. Pain of Salvation’s Remedy Lane, Zeal and Ardor’s Stranger Fruit, El-P’s I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead: the genres may vary, but the sensation is the same, of a deep and immediate resonance. The latest addition to this collection is Green Carnation’s A Dark Poem, Part II: Sanguis.
If you happen to be new to Green Carnation, or didn’t catch the five previous times that I’ve written about them for this publication, here’s a quick primer: first formed in Kristiansand, Norway in 1990,1 the band have a storied pedigree spanning dalliances with doom, death, and gothic metal, many lineup changes, a hiatus, and band members whose other credits include Emperor, Subterranean Masquerade, and In the Woods… to name but a few.
In 2025, Green Carnation announced a forthcoming trilogy of albums to be released across the following two years. The immediate familiarity I felt upon hearing this latest installment may be in part because the album carries on where last September’s Part I left off—with the band’s signature stately, doom-tinged prog metal sound. But there are minor iterations on the formula: with founding member and songwriter Tchort absent from this album’s lineup,2 bassist Stein Roger Sordal assumes primary lyric-writing duties. And where Part I lingered in atmosphere—as the band set sail in moody, introspective waters—Part II: Sanguis is more volatile. It smoulders from its opening bars with a fiery power that matches the striking album cover. The opening title track traces the story of Sordal’s childhood in a home shadowed by abuse, unflinchingly given voice by Kjetil Nordhus’ fluid, expressive baritone, streaked with threads of harsh vocals.
However, Sanguis also sees Green Carnation expose some of the band’s raw and tender edges, as they fit not one but two ballads into the album’s tidy thirty-seven-minute runtime. On “Loneliness Untold, Loneliness Unfold”, Sordal opts to give voice to another vulnerable lyrical exploration, this time about a friend struggling with suicidal thoughts. His vocals are backed only by a barren clean guitar melody. Perhaps the most effective aspect here is the negative space the instrumentation creates, allowing the skyward clawing guitars that open following track “Sweet to the Point of Bitter” to land with near-seismic force. And closing out Part II, “Lunar Tale” glimmers with gentle keys and flute before ending in an atmospheric if somewhat anticlimactic fadeout.
As is their wont, Green Carnation never let any one instrument steal the spotlight. Rather, the five band members interlock like well-worn, smooth gears, steadily bearing the weight of the album’s musical and thematic heft. The result is a sound that’s collectively upheld rather than individually led. Toothy guitar tones and warmly retro keyboards interweave in long, lyrical lines, parting and rejoining with an easy familiarity, and distinct flickers of brilliance emerge so naturally you almost don’t notice: the bright bassline in “Fire in Ice” rises to prominence just long enough to leave its imprint, while Jonathan Perez’s percussion on “Lunar Tale” moves with elastic energy.
Perhaps even more than its predecessor, Sanguis feels like an installment rather than a self-contained statement. Its short runtime and less consistent thematic throughline give the album a fragmented quality, as if we’re catching glimpses of a larger emotional arc rather than being guided cleanly through it. The snippets of spoken word that bookend “Loneliness Untold, Loneliness Unfold” and “Fire in Ice”, while inoffensive, don’t add much. And the latter track’s lyrics, veering from the album’s deeply personal subject matter into more social commentary, skew heavy-handed with reference to social media bios and exposure.
And yet, even with a few loose threads, Sanguis never comes apart at the seams. That initial sense of familiarity proves well-founded: Green Carnation remain masters of a sound that’s lived-in, deeply felt, and deployed with both authority and vulnerability. Proving a compelling second act on the stage set in A Dark Poem Part I, Sanguis’ resonant emotional flashpoints coalesce into something stirring, if not entirely self-contained. Like that well-worn sweater, it may not be pristine, but it fits instinctively. And for now, that’s enough to keep drawing me back in.
Recommended tracks: Sanguis, Sweet to the Point of Bitter
You may also like: Throes of Dawn, October Falls, Subterranean Masquerade, Communic
Final verdict: 7/10
A Dark Poem, Part II: Sanguis by Green Carnation
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Label: Season of Mist
Green Carnation is:
– Kjetil Nordhus (vocals)
– Stein Roger Sordal (bass, guitars, keyboards, vocals)
– Bjørn Harstad (guitars, effects)
– Endre Kirkesola (keyboards, synthesizers, organs, effects, backing vocals)
– Jonathan Alejandro Perez (drums)
With guests:
– Ingrid Ose (flute)
Related