Rainald König

Rainald König — German guitarist — was part of At Vance, forming with Olaf Lenk the band's guitar pair. That architecture is what makes the group's project possible. At Vance adapts pieces of classical music — Vivaldi, Beethoven, Mozart — into a metal format, and rebuilding a score written for orchestra within a rock band requires two guitars: one holds the harmonic base while the other performs the original melodic line, often written for violin and transposed without simplification. In the band's own material the logic is that of neoclassical power metal: lines harmonised in thirds, galloping riffs and solos alternating between the two guitars and the keyboard. It is a format depending on exact synchrony — any misalignment between the players undoes the harmony. König belongs to the phase in which At Vance established itself in the European circuit, with Oliver Hartmann on vocals and the most stable line-up in its history.