Stian Kristoffersen

Stian Kristoffersen — Norwegian drummer — is known for his work in Pagan's Mind and in projects across the Scandinavian progressive and melodic metal circuit. Pagan's Mind is a case apart in Norwegian music: progressive metal of clean production and science-fiction subject matter, made in a country whose international image in the genre was built by black metal. The band developed an audience of its own without fitting any of the categories Norway is associated with. Drumming in this repertoire works with irregular metres, frequent tempo changes and arrangements that must sound precise without sounding mechanical. It is a double demand: the playing has to be technically exact and at the same time keep a pulse — a central problem of progressive metal since its origin. Kristoffersen also works in other bands and projects on the Nordic circuit, common practice among drummers of the genre in the region, where the number of active projects consistently exceeds that of musicians able to perform them at the level required.