Kristian Niemann is a guitarist, ex-member of Therion

Therion (band)

Therion is a Swedish symphonic metal band founded by Christofer Johnsson in 1987. The word "therion" comes from the Greek therion , meaning "Beast," i.e., that of the Christian Book of Revelation...

, Lithium and Demonoid

Demonoid (band)

Demonoid is a Swedish extreme metal band founded in 2003 that derives its influences from traditional death metal, thrash metal and black metal....

 bands. He studied jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 at Musicians Institute

Musicians Institute

Musicians Institute is a privately owned for-profit music vocational school located in Hollywood, California. Although not a regionally accredited school, the school offers a variety of unaccredited Bachelor Degree, Associate Degree and Certificate programs in fields including contemporary music...

. In 1996 his song "Industrial Type Thang" was featured in JSR Records' compilation Hottest Unknown Guitarists. His style of playing mostly centers around legato

Legato

In musical notation the Italian word legato indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly and connected. That is, in transitioning from note to note, there should be no intervening silence...

, sweep picking, and he sometimes uses two-handed tapping

Tapping

Tapping is a guitar playing technique, where a string is fretted and set into vibration as part of a single motion of being pushed onto the fretboard, as opposed to the standard technique being fretted with one hand and picked with the other...

 to play extremely fast shreds. He is also brother of Johan Niemann

Johan Niemann

Johan Niemann is best known for being the actual bass player for Evergrey and co-founding the band Mind's Eye, for membership of Swedish heavy metal band Therion and as a member of the Scandinavian theatrical metal band Evil Masquerade.He is also currently live guitarist for Tiamat...

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