Send "Thy Catafalque " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Sputnikmusic |
 Sometimes an album can give you what you want so perfectly that it makes you feel like the band have access to your brain. I mean, are Thy Catafalque regular readers of my Twitter feed? Obviously I'm joking, but the coincidence is a little creepy; Rengeteg could not possibly be a better response to my thoughts on the masterful Róka Hasa Rádió if it tried. I can even use direct quotes that I've posted online in the past to show it.Criticisms like 'unsurprisingly, the band are at their weakest when they stray too far from metal' are dealt with by simply not straying away from metal. The album doesn't really get weird in any sense until it's almost half an hour into its running time; up until then, it's just straight-up metal, albiet Thy Catafalque's own particular brand of it. If you loved the heavier sections of Róka Hasa Rádió, you'll love this too, because they've kept all the things that made them so good (like 'folky tunes so completely bathed in Nordic passion that I couldn't even imagine singing along to them without having at least 4 tankards of mead first', or 'never neglect[ing] melody, texture, or rhythm in pursuit of atmosphere or rawness'). The influences they're drawing in from other metal bands is perfectly chosen too; the 14 minute "Vashegyek" echoes Agalloch's Ashes Against the Grain in its heavier sections, and that's never a bad thing to be compared to. It does get weird eventually, though. And yet, when it does, it feels a lot more tasteful that the more unusual touches on their last outing. There's no more saxophone, for one thing; instead there's a ballad in "Kő koppan" that mixes the sounds of the post-metal Ulver albums with folky strings (hardly 'weird' in a broader sense, admittedly, but a change at least), and the instrumental "Holdkomp" is a minimal, glitchy slice of IDM that eventually introduces a skittering electronic beat, live drums, and some keyboards that sound like Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. "Az eső, az eső, az eső", one of the album's highlights, is built on dark layers of reverb-heavy synth pads and a clipped, echoing guitar part that sounds like early U2. The heaviness is never too far away though, as the breakneck closer "Minden test fű" proves - it's the heaviest song I've heard by them yet....full text |
| Lordsofmetal |
| Evil Dr. Smith: Thy Catafalque’s fifth album ‘Rengeteg’ is absolutely one fucking brilliant masterpiece of an album. I listen to my promotional copy more than the last Mastodon and Opeth... together. The "folkish, atmospheric post-black metal" (bla bla bla) is so intensely good that it brings tears to my eyes - even though I can't understand one syllable of the lyrics. The melancholy atmosphere, the cinematographic and sometimes even psychedelic/spacerock kinda "avant-garde metal" with almost Neurosis-like sludge metal eruptions and the timbre of the clean and emotional singing session vocalist (one Attila Bakos) hit exactly the right nerves on my spine. If you’re in desperate need for music in the vein of The Kovenant, Arcturus, Ulver, Agalloch and Drudkh, you can stop looking, because you have found it. Even better than all those bands together! Highlights: the simple, but oh so effective guitar riff at 7'40" in 'Fekete Mezök' and the fourteen minutes of the majestic grandeur of 'Vashegyek', including the unexpected, hypnotizing female vocals (by Agnes Tóth) that brings Anathema's 'Everwake' & 'J'ai fait une promesse' back to mind....full text |
| Alternativematter |
| Thy Catafalque is a relatively unknown avant-garde metal project that hails from Hungary. At the heart of it, stands multi-instrumentalist and composer Tamás Kátai, and I can safely say that this man is an absolute genius. There are not many bands that are so… undeniably experimental while retaining a very accessible and easily listenable sound. When I think of avant-garde elite names such as Ulver, Diablo Swing Orchestra and Solefald come to mind, and it’s safe to say that their sound, while brilliant too, is clearly not as accessible as what Thy Catafalque’s produced with Rengeteg. I think that’s something very praiseworthy, and it puzzles me all the more that this band has not gotten more recognition from a larger audience just yet. Rengeteg is the latest in Thy Catafalque’s already rather impressive discography and it is by no means a step back in comparison to its predecessors. The main difference between it and the others lies within the experimental side. It’s slightly less prominent on this album, and has made way for nice, not overly complex guitar riffs that lie high in the mix. There aren’t many actual solos to be found on this album, but as Thy Catafalque has always been a band that was more reliant on keyboards for their melodies that is by no means a down point. The keyboards still provide the melodies as they did before; the guitars are just more prominent, and as such Thy Catafalque hasn’t undergone a major sound shift, they still very much sound like themselves....full text |
Thy Catafalque lyrics
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