Tristania (band)

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Tristania

Background information
Origin Stavanger, Norway
Genre(s) Gothic metal
Years active 1997–present
Label(s) Napalm Records
SPV
Website Official website
Members
Mariangela Demurtas
Østen Bergøy
Anders Høyvik Hidle
Rune Østerhus
Einar Moen
Kenneth Ølsson
Svein Terje Solvang
Former members
Vibeke Stene
Morten Veland
Kjetil Ingebrethsen

Tristania is a gothic metal band from Norway, formed in the end of 1996 by Morten Veland, Einar Moen and Kenneth Olsson.

Contents

[edit] Music

Tristania's music is usually classified as gothic metal with death/doom influences (especially on the early albums), due to its strong ties with the goth metal's history.

On their first releases the band had a sound based on melodic death metal riffs with dominant eerie keyboard and powerful drums, and choirs. A strong influence in their music is also doom metal, which can be heard in the slow, melancholic riffing. Tristania put a lot of focus around operatic female vocals, haunting choruses and classical instruments such as pipe organ, flutes and violins. There was a bigger focus also on the death vocals of Morten Veland. This combination of death vocals with female operatics and majestic gothic choruses is believed by many fans to have reached its pinnacle on their Beyond the Veil album.

In recent years Tristania stepped back from the bombastic layer-over-layer productions and focused more on balancing the various vocal styles and progressing their sound without losing the overall feeling.

On their fourth album Ashes the vocal duties were done by the following:

  • (Operatic) female vocals - provided by Vibeke Stene.
  • Death Vocals (grunts, growls and screams) - done by Kjetil Ingebrethsen and guitarist Anders Høyvik Hidle.
  • Clean vocals (hollow baritone) - provided by Østen Bergøy.

Their newest album, Illumination, featured the same vocalists minus Kjetil. There are fewer grunts on the new album compared to their previous work, and the ones that do appear are courtesy of Vorph from the band Samael.

[edit] Biography

Tristania was formed at the end of 1996 by Morten Veland, Einar Moen and Kenneth Olsson from the remains of their previous band Uzi Suicide. Later, Anders H. Hidle and Vibeke Stene joined the band, along with bassist Rune Østerhus. In May 1997 their first EP, Tristania, was released. The same year Tristania released its first full length album, Widow's Weeds. A year later, following the Angina single, they recorded their second full length album, titled Beyond the Veil, which is thought by many fans to be not only the finest Tristania project but also the album which best represents the band's sound. The music is considered very atmospheric and full of deep melodic passion. Veland composed most of their works, wrote lyrics, played guitar and sang growling vocals. He was fired (according to his version of events) from the band after the release of Beyond the Veil due to what the remaining members refer to only as "musical and social differences".

In 2001 their third album, World of Glass was released. The absence of Veland was significant, and consequently this album was a departure from their previous sound. The growling vocals on this album were sung by Ronny Thorsen, a member of Trail of Tears, and the clean vocals were sung by Jan Kenneth Barkved and Østen Bergøy. Bergøy then joined the band as a permanent member, and so did Kjetil Ingebrethsen, who was in charge of singing death vocals.

The band's fourth album – Ashes (2005) – was the first of Tristania's albums on the SPV label after their contract with Napalm Records expired. The choirs are gone, as are the more challenging vocal parts reminiscent of World of Glass and Beyond the Veil. Hidle and Einar Moen add their vocals to certain tracks on the album. Two of the songs were actually written by the Tristania.com webmaster, Kjartan Hermansen ("Libre" and "Circus") while the song "The Wretched" is based on "Ascending: Descending" – a poem by Hermansen. Also on Ashes, the violins of Pete Johansen – which so often accompanied the previous Tristania albums – were replaced by the cello melodies of Hans Josef Groh. The album marked a lyrical and musical simplification of the band from the days of Morten Veland, more so than the first album without Veland, World of Glass.

The Ashes Tour in Europe (minus Einar Moen, who remained at home to work on more material for the band, but is still an active member) brought about another change for the band, the addition of a second guitarist – Svein Terje Solvang – who previously played with the band for touring purposes. His addition to the band as a permanent member in May 2005 marked the first time Tristania has had a two-guitarist team since Beyond the Veil.

In April 2006, Kjetil Ingebrethsen left Tristania to embark on a lower level musical career.

On February 27 2007, Vibeke Stene left the band to teach singing.

On October 19 2007, Italian singer Mariangela Demurtas (ex-Reel Fiction, Alight) is announced as the new female singer. Her strong voice (very different from Vibeke's) seems to foreshadow deeper changes in the style of the band.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Band members

[edit] Current members

[edit] Former members

[edit] External links

[edit] Official websites

[edit] Tristania at online databases