Our review of "A Dark Poem, Part III: The Messiah Complex", the album that closes GREEN CARNATION's trilogy, is now live — and we gave it a 10/10. The record arrives on September 4 through Season Of Mist.
That score is worth pausing on. There are 49 perfect scores on this site, and every single one of the others comes from the legacy archive we migrated in March. This is the first 10/10 we have handed out since.
The trilogy began in 2025 with "A Dark Poem, Part I: The Shores of Melancholia" and continued with "Part II: Sanguis" this April. Running underneath all three is Arthur Rimbaud's "Ophelia" — used as a source of inspiration rather than adapted directly, until the title track finally reaches for it.
The band knew where they were going. "While the direction revealed itself as the creative journey unfolded, 'The Messiah Complex' was carefully planned with a clear vision for where we wanted the story to end," bassist and lyricist Stein Roger Sordal said in a press release.
Four tracks, and the last one is the point: "A Dark Poem - Orchestral Suite" runs 16:47. Before it come "Unconditional Artificial Chemistry", "The Messiah Complex" and "Broken Souls, Common Enemies", all carrying the uplifting-but-melancholic arrangements the Kristiansand band has traded in for more than twenty-five years. That signature has never meant softness — there are heavy chugging riffs and lower-register growls here too, most of all on "Broken Souls, Common Enemies".
Reviewer Ryan Thompson opens by admitting the hubris of reviewing this band at all: they know their craft and require no notes from outsiders. He finds almost nothing to argue with, save a shorter runtime that stops being a complaint the moment you count the two albums standing behind it, and calls it one of the most emotionally satisfying listening experiences he has had in some time.
His advice to anyone intimidated by walking into a trilogy is to take it from the poem: jump into the river of GREEN CARNATION now, and float downstream like pale Ophelia.
The verdict, in full: This is art.
"A Dark Poem, Part III: The Messiah Complex" track listing:
- Unconditional Artificial Chemistry
- The Messiah Complex
- Broken Souls, Common Enemies
- A Dark Poem - Orchestral Suite