Shining

Shining (stylized as SHINING) is a Norwegian hard rock band from Oslo. Thirteen musicians have been a part of the band's lineup in its history, with singer, guitarist, saxophonist, and songwriter Jørgen Munkeby as its leading force and only constant member. The band is also called SHINING (NOR) to avoid confusion with the eponymous Swedish black metal band. Shining was created in 1999 as an acoustic instrumental jazz quartet consisting of Munkeby, drummer Torstein Lofthus, pianist Morten Qvenild, and double bassist Aslak Hartberg. They released their first albums Where the Ragged People Go and Sweet Shanghai Devil in 2001 and 2003 respectively. Their 2005 album In the Kingdom of Kitsch You Will Be a Monster led the band into a more avant-garde, electric, and rock-oriented sound, with Qvenild playing synthesizers and other electronic keyboards and Hartberg mostly using bass guitar instead of double bass. Qvenild and Hartberg both left the band before or following the release of the album, being replaced in 2005 by Andreas Hessen Schei and Morten Strøm respectively. Under this line-up, Shining released Grindstone in 2007, an album going into a heavier direction and distancing itself more from jazz, incorporating elements from progressive rock, pop, and 19th and 20th century classical music. During the following years, Schei was replaced by Andreas Ulvo who was himself replaced by Bernt Moen, while Tor Egil Kreken replaced Strøm on bass guitar. The band included guitarist Even Helte Hermansen as a new member in 2010, expanding into a quintet. On their fifth album Blackjazz (2010) Shining became an extreme avant-garde metal band with the use of growled vocals from Munkeby. During the same year, Hermansen was replaced by Sagen. Their first live album Live Blackjazz and sixth studio, One One One, released in 2013, follow the musical direction begun in Blackjazz. In the following years, Lofthus (the only original member left aside from Munkeby), Løchsen, and Kreken all left the band. The two first were replaced by Tobias Ørnes Andersen and Eirik Tovsrud Knutsen respectively, while Ole Vistnes became the bassist. Their studio album International Blackjazz Society, which helmed the band's shift away from avant-garde jazz-influenced metal towards a more classic hard rock sound, was released in 2015. Shining's metal-oriented albums were received with much acclaim from both jazz, heavy metal, and more mainstream critics.