Review Summary: Dancing on the edge of eternity.
Time changes everything. People change as they go through many life experiences that form them into a complete different person they were before. Entire genres of music can become popular or fade out within a generation. A band that represented a certain style can do a full 180. Even Thy Catafalque, the one-man experimental black metal music machine and its mastermind Tamas Katai changes. It has been a long time since him and his projects were part of the deepest realms of the musical underground, limited to only to a few ears in his home country Hungary. Now in 2020 with the support of Season of Mist, and many different albums under his belt he and Catafalque’s music has changed in many ways. The roots remained the same, but everything sounds different. Or better to say, a more and more crystallized version of the music he has been hearing and composing in his mind for so long.
Since the early days Catafalque has been a fusion of dark, heavy, grinding sometimes almost industrial-like guitar riffs and atmospheric keyboards to create a mixture of brooding yet simultaneously dreamlike musical aura. Over the years and the albums, the many different influences that formed Katai’s sense of musical compositing began to blend into Catafalque. The rhythms and sounds of Hungarian folk, modern classical music like Bela Bartok, doom metal. 2018’s “Geometria” proved to another watershed moment and his sensibilities towards lighter musical genres began to dominate. Heavy electronic samples, EDM and darkwave, keyboards full taking over the six-strings. Each record proved his sense of experimentation and his desire to push himself into new, uncharted territories. “Naiv” is no different.
The album starts off in almost standard Catafalque fashion, with grimy black metal riffs, double bass drumming and a mixture of clean female vocals and vicious snarls, some whimsical keyboards and the so-called arena-like breakdowns where you almost feel like the music expands to almost to outer space. But if “A bolyongás ideje” was the conservative invitation to the longtime fans, the next track “Tsitsushka” can easily be the divider. A masterfully crafted, highly diversive instrumental piece, that very much feels and sounds like a never-ending dance to the infinite void of the universe, once again displays Katai’s creative instrumentalization. With a fretless bass, smooth saxophones and an almost big band-like chorus of trumpets to the mix, he adds yet another dimension (and groove) to his musical style while the core remains intact.
The Hungarian folk influences that always played a large part in Catafalque come out probably the strongest since “Rengeteg”, from the song titles, to the lyrics, to the structuring of the songs itself. Violins, trumpets, citera, flutes, dark synths and ethereal sounding accords meld together with angelic female vocals singing about becoming one with nature. The whole album is also bursting from not only originality but also from vitality. Unlike some of the more depressive, morose Catafalque records, “Naiv” is positive energy, a constant sense of rhythm. The songs feel like an invitation to enjoy the mystique of life before it slips from our hands.
But that’s not surprising given that “Naiv” is the shortest album Tamas has recorded, and none of the track climb over ten minutes. It’s compact, tight, and probably the most accessible of all the Catafalque records. From the somber, fast paced “Napút” to the charming electro-prog folk of “Kék madár (Négy kép)” and the non-stop eclecticism of “Vető” which combines almost Machine Head-like thrash-groove riffs with video game keyboard solo sections, the highlights are many. Katai crafts each song with its own identity, all killer, no filler.
As a Hungarian, I always feel a sense of happiness and pride whenever a new Thy Catafalque album arrives nowadays. Not just because of the high quality of the music, but also how an artist how can share his (and our) cultural heritage with such finesse and mastery is now at the forefront of the experimental metal scene. No longer confined by limitations, Katai can create freely, and with each new step he makes, his music becomes more and more colorful. I can only hope we can follow him on his journey for many years to come.
