Tristania
Tristania is a band from Norway, formed in 1996 by Morten Veland, Einar Moen and Kenneth Olsson. Tristania's music is usually classified as symphonic gothic metal with doom/death metal influences (especially on the early albums), due to its strong ties with the goth metal's history. The band name could be a reference to Norwegian trist, which means "sad" or "depressing"; and/or the tristania flower.
On their early albums the band's sound was based on melodic death metal riffs with dominant and eerie keyboard and choirs. Doom metal is another strong influence, which can be heard in the slow, melancholic riffing. Tristania put a lot of focus on operatic female vocals, haunting choruses, and classical instruments such as pipe organ, harpsichord, flutes and violins. On the band's early albums there was also a prominent focus 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 album Beyond The Veil.
On later albums Tristania stepped back from the bombastic layer-over-layer production and focused more on balancing the various vocal styles. Østen Bergøy was added on clean male vocals (hollow baritone) for the album Beyond The Veil, first as a guest singer and later as a full band member. After the departure of Veland, the death vocals were performed by guitarist Anders Høyvik Hidle and Kjetil Ingebrethsen (who joined the band officially for the album Ashes), and a variety of guest vocalists.
Based on Wikipedia article
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