Malkhedant

Elffor’s evolution during its career has been remarkable. Eöl’s personal project began as a pure ambient project in the vein of other interesting bands like Vinterriket, for example. But Elffor focused more on adding an especially intense medieval touch to its compositions, being able to create an excellent soundtrack of the Dark Ages. Contrary to other ambient based bands, Elffor has constantly evolved and with the following albums Eöl started to add more metal elements, which enriched the band´s sound and shaped its own style. With “From the Throne of Hate” Elffor became a darker version of Summoning, playing a slow paced black metal with great keys and the recognizable high pitched screams of Eöl. Those vocals were clearly influenced by Burzum. With the following albums the sound became heavier, tough efforts like the masterful “Unblessed Woods” showed how well work the most atmospheric parts with the heavier ones. Since “Frostbitten Pain” the black metal side became more predominant with longer and faster sections. Fortunately, the magnificent atmosphere achieved by the keys was still there. Even with this faster sound Elffor continued to maintain two essential elements of the bands style, the atmospheric keys and Eöl’s screams.

Sadly the situation seems to have changed with his new opus called “Malkhedant”. My expectations were remarkably high after the interesting “Heriotz Sustraiak”. Moreover, those expectations were reinforced by the astonishingly good bonus tracks appeared on the reeditions of the last albums. Those tracks were long, intensely atmospheric and full of amazing keys, I couldn’t be more satisfied with them. However “Malkhedant” marks a rupture in Elffor’s traditional style. The album begins with a long track called “Gaizkiaren hats iluna” which gives you a clear impression of how the album is going to be. The first 6-7 minutes are a furious attack of straightforward black metal with almost no keys and a true fest of blast-beats. Until the second half of the song the keys don’t appear, but thankfully when they do, they continue to be quite good. Anyway and old fan like me expects to enjoy those keys through all the song, not as an occasional addition. With the second track the structure is more or less the same, though I would say that this track is better. The main role is again for the drums and guitars until it appears another change of tempo in the second half the song. A fantastic medieval/atmospheric section is introduced, this part is so good that I undoubtedly consider it as the best and most beautiful one of this album. Another relevant characteristic of these tracks is that Eöl continues the trend of the last albums, where he has performed vocals without the high pitched tone of the classic works. In this case the use of this tone has been reduced even more. I personally miss it because I think that those vocals fitted the music very well.

“Solis in antris“, the third track, could be the best song of the album but it’s still far from being as good as the best compositions made by Eöl. It’s a Summoning-esque track with a slower pace and a greater presence of the keys through the song, which is something closer to what Elffor should do. The keys should fill the music and create an enveloping atmosphere, not only appearing sparsely. The problem with this track is that Eöl almost no sings and that he lets the main role on vocals to Hildr Valkyrie. Once again on this album, a track lacks one of the two trademarks elements of Elffor’s music. This problem appears once again in the last track where Hildr becomes again the main voice with Eöl appearing only sporadically. In addition to this, the last composition lacks, once again, a greater presence of the keys which should lead the song. They appear on a very little amount and not playing a major role as they used to do in the past albums. This is not by any means the best ending for an Elffor album.

In conclusion, the major problem of “Malkhedant” is that this album gives you an impression of being a project where Eöl is the guest member and not the other musicians, when it should the opposite. From the very beginning of the bands career the atmospheric keys have played a main role alongside with Eöl’s shrieks. Sadly “Malkheldant” have little of those two, which is weird, and after some listens, finally disappointing. It’s a quite good black metal album because Jabo´s riffs are consistent and Ametsgaizto’s drums are brutal. Nevertheless as an Elffor album, which is something more than the average black metal album, “Malkhedant” is not something we could have expected and desired.