Diabolical Masquerade

Biography

Diabolical Masquerade was a Swedish one-man black metal band with progressive influences. The band was formed in 1993 in Stockholm as a side project of Anders Nyström (a.k.a. Blakkheim), known as the guitarist of Katatonia.

History

Diabolical Masquerade was a Swedish one-man black metal band. Katatonia guitarist Anders "Blakkheim" Nyström wrote and performed all music. He wanted to compose more extreme music while Katatonia explored more mellow moods. The music leans on avant-garde melodic black metal with death metal and thrash metal influences. Nyström wanted to experiment with song structure, themes, and composition. This is notable on the last Diabolical Masquerade album, Death's Design. This album was conceived as the soundtrack to a nonexistent horror movie, with 61 tracks broken up into 20 movements, each with a feel and theme. Death's Design includes passages featuring various genres and styles, experimenting with progressive rock, progressive metal, ambient, classical music, and rhythmic percussion-based passages. Nyström worked on the album with Dan Swanö. In early September 2004, Nyström announced that he had ended the project, lacking inspiration while working on a fifth album.

Band members

Diabolical Masquerade
Anders "Blakkheim" Nyström – vocals, guitar (1993–2004), bass, keyboards (1993–1998)
Dan Swanö – keyboards (1996, 1998–2001), drums (1996, 1998), guest vocals (1997), backing vocals (1998), guitar (2001)