Review Summary: The poetic median
Karnivool.
Much has happened since we last saw each other.
Quite like the pageantry of the bastardised nu-metal namesake, there is something bitterly nostalgic about a carnival washing up on your shores. A big top frayed by years of travels beyond the horizon. Are the marvels within the tent just an artefact of childhood wonder? Or does the theatrical genius endure?
Well. Here arrives the circus.
2013’s Asymmetry was a polarising and aptly named record. An album as jagged as it was sweet. A difficult digestion of dissonant guitars and off-kilter melodies. In retrospect, an omen of the road to come. Sound Awake, for many, was also an aptly named record. An awakening. Those two albums, collectively, represent the light and the dark periods of life. A yin, and a yang. Both sit at opposite ends of a very long spectrum, yet they counterpoint each other so necessarily. In between these poles sits an underswell of grey. Space between the highs and lows. Verses between the chorus.
With age, these metaphorical verses seem to grow in length. Explorations into the life’s margins are fewer and further between. The dark moments can settle, but so too can the joy. Without close scrutiny, existing in this space can feel akin to a slowly numbing limb. Scar tissue amassing. An anchor into the in-between.
In Verses, then, finds itself aptly named as well. It is Karnivool at a meticulously balanced valence. Heavy, yet delicately light. For those following along since the now decade-old live demos, the final strokes on the canvas may come as surprise. It is an album that bears the scars of time, but also the wisdom that follows them. A collection of chapters that, while on the surface seem comparatively muted compared to previous works, tell a story of love, loss, and the grey into which they lead us.
Perhaps that is the quiet achievement of In Verses. It does not demand asymmetrical attention, nor does it freight in an awakening. Not all creative wonders are extracted from the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Sometimes they’re extracted from the space in between. The poetic median.
