Vinícius Maluly

Vinícius Maluly — Brazilian keyboardist — is part of Dark Avenger, the Curitiba band whose sound depends decisively on the keyboard. That is not common in Brazilian metal. In power metal bands the keyboard usually doubles the guitars or adds sheen; in Dark Avenger it builds the atmosphere that defines the group. The songs are slow, long and narrative — the Arthurian cycle in Tales of Avalon, themes of loss and darkness in The Beloved Bones: Hell (2017) — and it is the keyboard that creates the sonic space where those narratives take place. It is work closer to a film score than to band accompaniment. Sustained layers, choir and organ timbres, harmonies that move slowly: devices drawn as much from European epic metal as from incidental music for cinema and theatre. Dark Avenger never had great commercial reach, but built a reputation as a band with a conception of its own — the kind you listen to whole, start to finish, rather than in isolated tracks.