Band:	Thy Catafalque
Album:	Naiv
Style:	Avantgarde black metal
Release date:	January 24, 2020
A review by:	musclassia

01. A Bolyongás Ideje
02. Tsitsushka
03. Embersólyom
04. Számtalan Színek
05. A Valóság Kazamatái
06. Kék Madár (Négy Kép)
07. Napút
08. Vető
09. Szélvész

I've been waiting a long time for a Thy Catafalque album to make me feel this level of joy.

My introduction to this Hungarian avant-garde act was 2011's excellent Rengeteg, a blissful, jovial effort with folky playfulness combined with a rich, evocative emotional core, helped in no small part by the guest vocals from Attila Bakos. Their next effort, Sgurr, singularly failed to recapture that magic for me, and whilst the next two releases, Meta and Geometria, were far more appealing, they didn't quite offer what I was looking for. Meta was aggressive and somewhat bleak, whereas Geometria had a quite subdued vibe for large stretches. Naiv, in contrast, is exactly I've been hoping a new Thy Catafalque album would sound like since my first encounter with the project.

"A Bolyongás Ideje", with its layered vocals from guest singer Martina Veronika Horváth, moody grooves, and charming lead guitar and keyboard melodies, immediately revitalized my interest in the band after so long. The song, unsurprising given the avant-garde nature of the artist, jumps around a fair bit, with bursts of extremity and bouncier segments slotted in between the more mid-tempo stretches that make up the majority of the song; however, I feel like the transitions are more seamless and different sections are more natural companions within a single song than has been the case on certain albums. "Tsitsushka", on the other hand, is less scattered, with a upbeat crescendoing introduction lasting for a while before taking a left turn into funkytown around the 2-minute mark. What both these songs offer is a real sense of fun, something I've found to be a bit lacking in the previous 3 Thy Catafalque releases, whilst still being delivered with complete conviction.

"Embersólyom", which was given the music video treatment, is perhaps the strongest exhibition of the folk influences that pop up in a number of Thy Catafalque songs, with its flute arrangements and vocal melodies; however, this is a different beast to something like "Kel Keleti Szél", with a less playful and more melancholic tone, and a frantic, bludgeoning conclusion. There are occasional moments of aggression throughout this album, but to a lesser extent than on Meta, and tastefully incorporated alongside what is otherwise predominantly either mellow or bouncy music. This time around, mastermind Tamás Kátai is more focused on the softer side of Thy Catafalque's sound, and in particular in playing around with different folk/world music influences, with later cuts such as "Kék Madár (Négy Kép)" and "Vető" featuring the use of instruments such as the citera and darbuka to good effect. "Vető", the longest song on Naiv is also the most eclectic, covering a large amount of territory in its 8-minute runtime without ever sounding incoherent or forced.

"Szélvész" features what is otherwise a rarity on Naiv, namely guest male clean vocals (provided by I believe Gyula Vasvári), and highlights what I feel is arguably the biggest weakness of this album compared to Rengeteg: the superior quality and greater presence of Attila Bakos on that album. Particularly given how much the instrumentation on this song calls back to Rengeteg, it would've been nice to see what Bakos could have brought to this song, and to Naiv as a whole. That aside, it's a pleasure to truly enjoy a Thy Catafalque effort again after nearly a decade.