Mattias Bernhardsson

Mattias Bernhardsson — Nocturnal Rites' keyboard player — came in initially as a session musician and later became a member of the band. That passage from guest to member says something about the evolution of the group's sound. In the power metal of the 1990s, the keyboard was an occasional ornament; from the turn of Shadowland (2002), with the band seeking a more modern melodic metal, keyboard layers became part of the texture of the tracks — present in the foundation, not only in intros and bridges. This is a trait of Scandinavian melodic metal in the 2000s: the keyboard stops imitating an orchestra and starts working as an electronic or atmospheric layer, closer to modern rock than to classic power metal. Bernhardsson occupies exactly that function in Nocturnal Rites — sustaining the sonic environment that separates records such as New World Messiah (2004) and Grand Illusion (2006) from what the band was doing ten years earlier.