It's been more than a decade since I listened to anything Elvenking have done. I remember I had their debut Heathenreel waaaay back and thought they were a band with potential because they were pretty state of the art for Folk Metal back then, so their limitations didn't stand out like they did later on awful albums like The Winter Wake or The Scythe. Red Silent Tides and Era both showed a band that was maybe improving, but I just didn't care anymore and had better uses for my time.
Elvenking have improved in the sense that they now sound like one band instead of a chimera of four bands mashed together, but they still are not anything I would call good. Overproduction attempts to paper over the fact that this is a band that does not really sound like anything—they aren't a guitar band, they aren't a keyboard band, they aren't heavy, they aren't melodic, and they don't have a good singer with good vocal hooks. Frontman Damnagoras is amazing in that he seems to sound like absolutely nothing. His tone is so feeble that even the studio tricks can't make him sound like he can sing at all. Everything about this is weak and shapeless except the production, which does whatever it can to prop up this faceless songwriting, but it can't save this band from itself.
