Emotional prog masters Karnivool are back with a heartwarming, albeit slightly tame entry with In Verses.
Release date: February 6, 2026 | InsideOut Music/Cymatic Records | Instagram | Website
Well, here it is! There’s actually a new Karnivool album out! Should you bathe in excitement? Have the Aussie prog metal masters created another masterpiece to stand tall amongst their other work? Or should you hold your breath and hinder your expectations?
Long-gestating releases tend to be double edged swords. A long wait can result in otherworldly expectations and those more often than not end up resulting in disappointment. And the anticipation for a new release from Karnivool could honestly only be compared with how long Tool fans waited for Fear Inoculum. These long creative hiatuses, when finally over, often arrive with a dangerous question dangling in the air – was it worth the wait?
I find that question to be wrong, all in all. It’s not like Karnivool spent 13 years in the studio. It’s also not like they had a creative block for all this time. If you expect In Verses to be the result of more than a decade of creative juices mixed up in a single release to surpass their previous peaks, you’re likely setting yourself up for disappointment. It’s natural to have good expectations and be excited for a band you like releasing new music, but you do have to try to control them into somewhat realistic expectations. I prefer to look at it like this: There’s a new Karnivool album out. There are more songs to enjoy. I hope they’re good. Well, to be honest, I hope they’re great. And I do feel these expectations were met with In Verses, at least to some extent.
I love Themata and Sound Awake very deeply. Both of those are some of my favorite progressive metal albums, containing some songs I hold very close to my heart and that helped me get through dark days. That’s a huge bar to match, and I wasn’t expecting it to – I just wanted Karnivool‘s creative comeback to sound genuine. I wanted them to not just release a record due to public pressure – and they didn’t. In Verses is very much a worthy addition to their catalogue, even if I don’t consider it to be on the same level as their previous releases. It’s Karnivool being Karnivool, and as a fan, I’m pretty happy to have more on my plate… But yes, I do think it could be better, and perhaps I did fall prey to some expectations, even if I tried to avoid them.
When I think Karnivool, I think about songs containing laid out emotional cores, outbursts of vulnerability, and of course, their expert songwriting that builds satisfying catharses. “New Day”, “Themata”, “Deadman”. These songs reach unparalleled highs. To be honest, those elements are indeed present in In Verses for sure… It just doesn’t hit as hard as it could. Or perhaps, as I wanted it to hit, and that’s a very important distinction.
Now, there are songs that do hit that spot quite nicely. The first three tracks on this album – “Ghost”, “Drone” and “Aozora” are all extremely solid, if a bit safe outings of what you’d look for in Karnivool‘s music and I’ve been replaying them constantly. I first heard “Ghost” in a live setting during their headline set at ArcTanGent 2025, and I was very excited to revisit it within the album’s context. It proved to be a fine album opener, which tastefully delivers the Karnivool melodies you were probably itching for in a while.
While I didn’t love “Drone” when it was released as a single, as I felt it was a very tame-sounding song to lead something as huge as their comeback announcement, in retrospect it ended up being a very good idea for a single. It illustrates In Verses is less about bombastic melodic bangers and more about a slightly laid back and introspective take on Karnivool‘s music. It does contain some top tier grooves and is a song that has grown on me immensely.
I particularly love “Aozora” – this track oozes classic Karnivool tropes, its bouncy, happy riffage explodes into the finest chorus and vocal lines in the album. The softer verses that build for the final chorus and outro is Karnivool at their finest, and it’s the one song that made me smile endlessly in happiness to have the Aussie boys doing new songs again. It’s a richly layered song that has been a live hit for a while, and I bet it will remain on their setlists pretty much indefinitely.
“Animation” onwards is where I’d say the album takes a bit of a quieter turn and the band starts exploring some different ideas, some of which I’m not particularly fond of. That song, along with its counterpart “Reanimation”, are fine for sure, but I’ve yet to connect to them on a more deeper level. The same can be said about the quieter “Conversations” – a song I’d think would be quite passable were it not for the unbelievably sexy bassline that pops around the midpoint and makes it much more interesting from there on, unlike “Remote Self-Control”, which I believe is quite unmemorable for its entirety. Still, when I hear these songs, I keep thinking they’re pulling their punches and could be better somehow.
Long time solo song “All It Takes” also finally found a home inside In Verses – it’s been so long since its release that the version available here is a remaster, which is pretty funny when you think about it, and it presents a welcome breath of energy to the album’s somewhat tame halfway section. I’ve never been really that fond of this song, but I do think this remaster makes it a bit more interesting than it was before.
I was also not sold on “Opal” when it came out as a single, but now I do think it’s a nice enough warmup to the closer “Salva”: a song that slowly is making its way into my heart. The soft buildup into the totally unexpected bagpipe section is tremendously beautiful and one of those deeply satisfying catharses that Karnivool does so well.
Listening to In Verses was a bittersweet ride for sure – it feels like revisiting a safe space, a very dear and personal space. It’s been over ten years since we got a full length record from them, so of course they would sound different than they did once. But the core, the things that make Karnivool so special are here in In Verses. Most of the album doesn’t match their previous career highs, at least for me – but the songs which I did love, I love dearly. They’re Karnivool, and their take on prog metal, while spawning many similar sounding bands, is still genuine, heartfelt, and something that takes me to that special place. I’ll keep spinning the album, and perhaps those songs I didn’t love will grow on me later on. In any event, I have new Karnivool on my hands, and this is enough to make me happy for now. Let’s not wait this long for a new release next time, yeah?
