THY CATAFALQUE: “XII: A GYÖNYÖRÜ ÁLMOK EZUTÁN JÖNNEK”

(Professor D. Grover the XIIIth rejoins us today with his review of Thy Catafalque‘s latest album, which will be released on November 15th by Season of Mist.)

Greetings and salutations, friends, and a happy impending Thy Catafalquemas to all who observe. It is at this point all but an official position of mine here at No Clean Singing as Guy Who Reviews The New Thy Catafalque album, a duty I relish. It is established canon at this point that Thy Catafalque are one of my favorite bands of the last two decades, an opinion bolstered by their consistently excellent output and clockworkesque album release cycle. Impressively, even with bandleader Tamás Kátai solidifying Thy Catafalque as a live entity, this new release (XII: A gyönyörü álmok ezután jönnek, or “The Beautiful Dreams Are Yet to Come”) comes only a year after its predecessor, Alföld.

Photo by Orsolya Karancz

If, like me, you are familiar with Roman numerals, then you’ll undoubtedly note from the title that this is Thy Catafalque’s twelfth studio album. I’ve mentioned in previous reviews that Kátai (the single permanent member and driving creative force of the band) has fully mastered his musical style, able to adapt it for a seemingly limitless amount of variation to that style while maintaining an immediately recognizable sound. Alföld was an excellent example of this, with its bleak, stripped-down take on Kátai’s usual style. XII represents, on the other hand, a sound more akin to 2018’s Geometria: more upbeat and melodic, less of an extreme metal album but still plenty heavy.

XII also represents the first time Kátai has worked with a producer rather than producing it himself, although producer Gábor Vári is still familiar with Kátai’s style, having participated in the early live incarnation of Thy Catafalque as a guitarist. While this doesn’t represent a huge shift in the sound on XII, the drums do sound a bit more organic and the atmosphere is a bit less oppressive than on Alföld.

XII also features a massive number of guest musicians beyond even the usual number of contributors on a Thy Catafalque album. There are frequent collaborators, like singers Martina Veronika Horváth and Zoltán Kónya, as well as the entirety of Thy Catafalque’s live lineup, and even a blast from the past with Attila Bakos, a staple from the early days, making his first appearance since 2016’s Meta.

Photo by Orsolya Karancz

Musically, as I alluded to earlier, XII is perhaps the most varied and diverse Thy Catafalque album since Geometria. The sheer number of guest musicians and the variety of instruments alone almost guarantee that this would be the case, and with any Thy Catafalque album you would expect the unexpected, but it’s still a wonderfully vibrant album from start to end.

Album opener ‘Piros kocsi, fekete éj’ is exuberant and upbeat, leading into one of the heavier tracks in ‘Mindenevö’, which veers between blackened fury and introspective melody. Further frontloading the album is the thrashy ‘Vasgyár’, which is probably the album’s heaviest song with its bestial vocals and beefy riffs, and the powerful ‘Világnak világa’, which features some incredibly catchy clean vocals amongst some massive guitar hooks.

Still, with this being a Thy Catafalque album, things are going to change from song to song (and often during those songs), and so you also have tracks like the folky Sebő Együttes cover ‘Lydiához’, the haunting ‘Ködkiraly’ (featuring the talents of live vocalist Ivett Dudás), or the saxophone and reverbed-out guitars of ‘Nyárfa, nyírfa’. There’s also ‘Vakond’ with its gallup rhythm and whistling intro giving it an almost Old West feel, quickly shifting into folky plucked strings, synths, and horns. It’s the kind of weirdness I’ve come to know and love in Kátai‘s music and it always keeps me guessing.

The album finishes with the incredibly strong title track, ‘A gyönyörü álmok ezután jönnek’, and the bonus track ‘Babylon’, a cover of the 1987 song by Hungarian prog rock band Omega. Both songs are incredibly memorable, providing a fittingly upbeat ending to the album.

Photo by Orsolya Karancz

It’s hard to say at this particular juncture where XII fits into my ranking of the Thy Catafalque discography (a purely conceptual ranking as of this writing, and bound to change from week to week). I like it more than Alföld and less than Vadak (admittedly my favorite modern Thy Catafalque album), but time and repeat listens could render that opinion obsolete. As with any Thy Catafalque release, there are so many nuances and fine details that it takes a while to really absorb the album as a whole. Still, as with any Thy Catafalque album, there’s no doubt that this is one of the year’s best albums, and well worth your time.

https://orcd.co/thycatafalquexiiagyonyorualmokezutanjonnek
https://thycatafalqueuk.bandcamp.com/album/xii-a-gy-ny-r-lmok-ezut-n-j-nnek
http://www.facebook.com/thycatafalque