KARNIVOOL - In Verses

There ain’t no place I’d rather be

But I’ve gotta go, I’ve gotta run away

At a certain point, the notion that Karnivool would never release another album stopped being an exaggeration. The Perth outfit, among the most significant acts to emerge around the turn of the 2010s thanks to a refined balance of alternative rock, heavy metal and progressive, had left behind an almost unfillable void after "Asymmetry" (2013).

The first news of a follow-up only began circulating six years later, but the band's history already hinted at the usual long and complicated gestation. Complicating matters further was the Covid-19 pandemic, which - as frontman Ian Kenny has stated - made the creative process "mentally devastating," fuelling stretches of stagnation that at times tipped into outright compositional paralysis. Against this backdrop, the return of producer Forrester Savell, already responsible for "Themata" and, above all, "Sound Awake", takes on strategic significance: not mere nostalgic comfort, but a deliberate choice to re-establish the expressive balance that had defined the band's identity over the years.

Given a process that layered ideas developed over more than fifteen years, expectations for this long-awaited "In Verses" were inevitably mixed. And yet the most striking surprise lies precisely in its cohesion: a compact, solid, remarkably organic record. From the opening track "Ghost" onward, an almost obsessive attention to dynamics and song architecture is immediately evident. The most rarefied passages and the heaviest ones coexist seamlessly, avoiding self-indulgent detours while keeping the narrative tension constant throughout. The following "Drone" consolidates this direction with a tightly wound rhythmic construction that clearly nods to the language of Tool and A Perfect Circle, propelled by Steve Judd's precise, nervy drumming.

The opening triptych is completed by "Aozora", already familiar to fans as a preview single, a sprawling mini-suite where practically everything happens: over six minutes in which the band unleashes its full expressive arsenal, from interwoven guitar lines and abrupt shifts in register to a central atmospheric break and a vocal performance from Kenny that swings with real versatility between aggression and introspection.

Compared to "Asymmetry", a record full of good ideas but at times unbalanced towards extreme, overly technical solutions, this time Karnivool mark a return to that balance between complexity and immediacy that made tracks like "Goliath" and "New Day" true cornerstones of their catalogue. Compact as it is, the album is nonetheless clearly structured into three broad sections. After "Animation", which leans heavily on unmistakably Tool-like coordinates, the record shifts gear into a more introspective phase: tempos stretch out, prog inflections recede into the background, while atmospheric elements gain ground, at times brushing against post-grunge territory. The high point of this section is "Conversations", one of the record's true peaks. An extended, layered ballad - curiously left off the European tour setlist - that serves as the emotional core of the album: rather than asserting itself as the central hook, the chorus becomes a hinge between the song's various sections, guiding the listener effortlessly through more than eight minutes.

Crucial here, alongside Judd's usual excellence, is the contribution of bassist Jon Stockman, whose off-kilter, dynamically decisive lines make all the difference. "Reanimations" continues along similar lines, enriched by a guest guitar contribution from Guthrie Govan.

"Remote Self Control" in turn serves as a seal before the album's final stretch. The track most reminiscent of their debut full-length "Themata", at least in terms of harmonic and melodic construction, is probably the record's most out-of-place moment. A technically dazzling episode, once again driven by Judd's drumming, but one that can feel overly indulgent towards virtuosity for its own sake, and above all represents too abrupt a stylistic break between the preceding stretch of the album and the deeply emotional finale the band has designed to close out the work. The two closing tracks indeed mark a clear shift in perspective.

"Opal" brings us back to a more emotional, contemplative dimension: built on a measured crescendo, embellished with discreet orchestration and consistently well-judged interventions from the guitar duo of Goddard/Hosking, it expands and widens the sonic field, letting Ian Kenny's voice soar with restraint and expressiveness. It serves as the prelude to the closing "Salva", which abandons the record's more complex architectures in favour of a more direct style of songwriting built through accumulation. The track unfolds as a long, progressively building anthem, in which the chorus - evocative and immediate - is grafted onto a sonic fabric in constant expansion, culminating in a final guitar explosion accompanied by surprising bagpipe flourishes that add a further layer of pathos and emotional depth. It's the ideal closer, not only musically but thematically too: Kenny's voice takes us by the hand and leads us through a journey confronting themes of escape, identity and the dissolution of the self through archetypal images - the sea, the heart, loss - achieving a universal emotional dimension without sacrificing real psychological substance.

After more than a decade of recorded silence, "In Verses" is not just Karnivool's long-awaited comeback, but the reaffirmation of a musical vision capable of blending complexity and restraint. A record that, against all odds, manages to turn a troubled gestation into a strength, restoring to the Australian band a centrality that seemed to have faded with time, thanks to a compositional maturity never before shown at this level.

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04/05/2026