Elffor ‎"Impious Battlefields" CD Slipcase

Re-issue of the 10th album with new design.
Slip Case CD with 8 page booklet including a poster.

t's weird coming to Impious Battlefields off of Malkhedant in the Elffor discography (the two dungeon synth albums in between notwithstanding). Malkhedant had a lot of interesting departures from Elffor's normal sound with its cleaner production and two guitar tracks. Two years later, Impious Battlefields feels like a bit of a regression; but a return to familiar territory isn't always a bad thing. We're back to a single guitar track, rawer production, and returned emphasis on the dungeon synth keys. The tempo is also much more relaxed compared to the rather fast and blast beaty tracks of Malkhedant. The almost 13 minute opener "Chants Between the Funeral Mists" borrows melodies from Summoning's "Kortirion Among the Trees" as does the album's title track which closes the album.
It's not until halfway through the second track, "When the Shadows Lengthen...", that the pace picks up, and that pace gets carried through almost the entirety of the following track "Old Uncharted Kingdom". These tracks highlight the nice use of keys over the simple tremolo riffs which were almost completely absent on Malkhedant and showing Elffor's key feature that made them so worthwhile in the first place: making damn strong fantasy driven atmospheric black metal with a mixture of haunting chants, midi brass instruments, and piano backing up simple yet effective guitar riffs.
Obviously, with an album title like Impious Battlefields, you get the imagery of fantasy battles; but to be fair the same could be said about everything else Eöl's worked on. Compared to some of Elffor's best works like Heriotz sustraiak or Unblessed Woods, Impious Battlefields seems like its on a tier below, but even b-tier Elffor is pretty good.

Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...