Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

Even during its initial gestation period, Thy Catafalque had already expanded beyond the perceived limits of extreme metal. With each album, Tamás Kátai and his band of collaborators have taken another step beyond the genre’s boundaries, bringing the world’s most vile art form into conversation with the avant-garde.

There’s still a light at the end of Thy Catafalque’s upcoming twelfth album. But as Kátai winds through its introspective journey into the night, XII: A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek revisits the all-consuming heaviness that courses back through the project’s 20-year history. While garnished with plenty of classical flourishes, its meaty new single “Mindenevő” growls like the belly of a metallic beast. 

The video for “Mindenevő” was created by G13 Film.

XII: A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek comes out November 15, 2024 on Season of Mist.  

Pre-order & Pre-save at https://orcd.co/thycatafalquexiiagyonyorualmokezutanjonnek

A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek is still guided by the dreaminess that fans in and outside of Hungary have come to admire about Thy Catafalque. After all, in English, the album’s title translates to ‘The Beautiful Dreams Are Yet to Come’. “I imagined these songs as a journey into the night”, Kátai says. Finding his way along this path required him to head in a different direction – at least, as far as the production goes. The dark waves of synth that streak through the album’s title track and lead single glow with the faint but familiar reassurance of the dawn.      

Still, journeying through A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek can be a rocky road. While the latest single opens with a plucking oud, “Mindenevő” is a full bore feast for bloodthirsty metalheads. The insatiable blast beats and tongue-flicking tremolo picking are cooked over the same blackened fires as Thy Catafalque’s 1999 debut. “Our last album, Alföld, was very bleak”, Kátai explains. “Adding classical and acoustic instruments helped add a sprig of color to these new songs, but XII still has plenty of metal”. 

Even the progressive flourishes feed the song’s sickening theme. A fretless bass waltzes into the room just as the video’s dinner party succumbs to their insatiable appetite for destruction. “Blood and fat shall course through every vein“, chants a doomy operatic chorus. “We devour everything around us”, Kátai says when asked about the philosophical musings that greased the wheels of “Mindenevő” (which means “Omnivore”). “It’s absurd. The way we consume everything in our path only leads us closer to our demise”.

In the end, the engorged death metal riffs finally eat their fill. Yet as the beastly “Mindenevő” lays to rest amidst a thick delirium of clarinet and French horn, the feeling that’s left churning in the pit of your stomach is pure, unfiltered dread. 

“Human beings do have an animal side”, Kátai says. “Even though some of us strive for purity, in the end, we have to recognize and accept the morbidity of nature”.  

Tracklist
1. Piros Kocsi, Fekete Éj (4:12)
2. Mindenevö (6:35) [WATCH]
3. Vasgyár (6:18)
4. Világnak Világa (6:28)
5. Nyárfa, Nyírfa (2:53)
6. Lydiához (3:05)
7. Vakond (4:29)
8. Ködkiraly (7:58)
9. Aláhullás (3:48)
10. A Gyönyörü Álmok Ezután Jönnek (3:14) [WATCH]
11. Babylon (Bonus Track – Omega Cover) (3:42)*
Total runtime: 49:02
*Digital only

For two decades, Tamás Kátai was content on sticking to the studio. That changed in 2021, when he and a cast of heavy hitters performed at the Fekete Zaj Festival. This milestone was later committed to memory on Mezolit, but Thy Catafalque has continued to grow into a steady and spectacular live act.

Earlier this year, Thy Catafalque headlined their  first tour of Europe. Now, to celebrate the project’s upcoming twelfth album, Kátai and his ever-growing list of collaborators will perform at four concerts across Europe. This includes two very special sold-out shows at one of Hungary’s most influential underground venues, where they’ll perform songs off XII: A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek, along with all ten tracks on the recently reissued fifth album Rengeteg.

During these two special shows at Dürer Kert, Thy Catafalque will be joined by the noisy experimentalists in Shum, labelmate Saor and Kátai’s old band, Gire.  

Thy Catafalque 2024 Concerts
October 12 – Thessaloniki, Greece, @ Mammothfest [TICKETS]
November 22 – Budapest, Hungary @ Dürer Kert w/ Saor [SOLD OUT]
November 23 – Budapest, Hungary @ Dürer Kert w/ Gire, Shum [SOLD OUT]

New fans and long-time appreciators can now rediscover just how much Thy Catafalque has grown since their humble beginnings as a duo. This year, Season of Mist re-issued Thy Catafalque’s first seven albums.

These reissues include first-edition pressings, limited color vinyls, UV-prints, 3D etchings and new artwork, plus bonus tracks.  

Order: https://redirect.season-of-mist.com/ThyCatafalqueReissues

Tamás Kátai has a vision that extends beyond borders and boundaries. Even during its infancy, Thy Catafalque had already outgrown the rather rigid guidelines of black metal. Though only intended for the studio, over the past 20 years, his recording project has evolved into a lively collaboration. With each album, Thy Catafalque has pushed the envelope of extreme metal a step further, bringing the world’s most vile art form into conversation with the avant-garde.  

Thy Catafalque’s twelfth album is even more expansive, but XII: A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek ties both to its mastermind’s past and the history of his native Hungary. “For this album, I felt it was time to move in a different direction, whatever that direction might be”, Kátai says, “but XII still possesses the dreaminess that I’ve always associated with Thy Catafalque”.   

Of course, Kátai hasn’t been mulling over this album for too long. Keeping in line with his prolific pace, XII arrives just one year after his previous album. Named after the stretch of land where the producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist was born in southeast Hungary,  Alföld returned to the heaviness from which Thy Catafalque took root during the late ’90s. Once again, Kátai set out to make a straightforward metal record, but while there’s plenty of cause for chest-pounding, A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek ended up taking him on another surreal headtrip.

“I think of this album as an introspective journey through the night”, Kátai says. Opener “Piros kocsi, fekete éj” (which in English means “Red Carriage, Black Night”) glides off through a warm mist of piping keys, led by twin engine guitars that crest with reverb. “Time clatters on the rails”. Attila Bakos sings in Hungarian. His voice beams over the airwaves with the same clean force as 15 years ago, when he helped lift Thy Catafalque out of the Hungarian underground on the recently reissued Róka hasa rádió.   

“Attila also sang on Rengeteg“, Kátai remembers about the first Thy Catafalque album that he wrote and recorded by himself. “‘Piros kocsi, fekete éj’ has the same sense for melody. It opens the album with a feeling of nostalgia”.  

Of course, many other familiar faces join Kátai on his journey. After all, Thy Catafalque started as a duo with János Juhász. A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek features the biggest guest list in the project’s long discography. More than 20 guest musicians appear on this album, including old friends from inside and outside the Hungarian metal scene. Martina Veronika Horváth — whose band The Answer Lies in the Black Void toured Europe with Thy Catafalque earlier in 2024 — duets with the tender brooding Gábor Dudás for a faithful rendition of “Lydiához”, a 1980 Sebő ensemble classic that sowed the seeds for Hungary’s roots revival.

“That is a song that’s been with me and the rest of my generation ever since we were children”, Kátai says. Violins, cello, clarinet and other classical instruments add to the comforts of home. Before it drifts off high beyond the clouds, “Vakond” strings along like a whistling stroll across The Great Plains. “Alföld was very bleak”, he continues. “Adding classical and acoustic instruments helped add a spring of color and an air of adventure to these new songs”.

Still, A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek can be a hard road — especially during its crushing middle section. Despite the gentle opening plucks, “Mindenevő” crashes down like a boulder, hurtling ahead at terrifying speed behind doomy operatic backing vocals, mechanized blast beats and the eerie fires of tremolo picking that forged Thy Catafalque’s debut Sublunary Tragedies. “This album still has plenty of metal”, Kátai assures. 

The heaviest moments are often grounded in Hungary’s history. While colored by nostalgia, XII is also shadowed by the ticking hands of time, a theme that ripples back to 2021’s Vadak. Blackened chugger “Vasgyár” shares a namesake with the rusted-out ironworks that once fueled the country’s economy. It’s not a political statement, but the song does reflect how the landscape has changed to the eye of the now 48-year-old Kátai.  

“Even the album’s visuals are from a bygone era”, he says. In the video for its title track, closing song and lead single, Kátai doesn’t just run through the streets of his hometown. Surreal scenes from the past and present linger along his winding path through the placid countryside. Watching his doppelgänger dig his own grave feels like a living nightmare. “‘This song comes from a place of desperation”, he says. “Within the afterglow of nostalgia, there’s also the chill of disappointment”.  

Ultimately, the progressive flair that has come to define Thy Catafalque shines through the darkness on album twelve. Only this time around, in order to reach the light at the end of the tunnel, Kátai needed some guidance. “I felt like the production had largely been the same since Geometria“, he admits. XII marks the first time in the project’s history that he worked with an outside producer. Granted, Gábor Vári is no stranger to how his mind works. When he’s not holed away in the studio with other prominent Hungarian metal bands, Gábor could be seen hammering away at his guitar on stage with Thy Catafalque on the live album Mezolit. “He was the perfect person to help give this album a somewhat different sound that is still familiar”.

As a result, “A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek” stands out as one of Thy Catafalque’s biggest crowd pleasers, uplifted by hand claps and catchy, fist-pumping riffs. Even the dark waves of synth glow with the reassurance of the dawn. “At the end, there’s still hope for a future that might offer warmer days after the darkness has ceded”.

Thy Catafalque’s twelfth album looks back longingly at the past, Tamás Kátai isn’t stopping to smell the roses. With A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek, he shows that the beautiful dreams are yet to come.

Recording Lineup
Tamás Kátai – guitar, bass, vocals, keyboards, programming

Guest musicians
Martina Veronika Horváth – vocals on Track 1, 6
Ivett Dudás – vocals on Track 8
Helga Kreiter – vocals on Track 4, 10
Gábor Dudás – vocals on Track 2, 5, 6, 10
Bálint Bokodi – vocals on Track 2, 4, 9
Gábor Veres – vocals on Track 3, 8
Attila Bakos – vocals on Track 1
Zoltán Kónya – vocals on Track 3
András Vörös – vocals on Track 4
Breno Machado – lead guitar on Track 2
Zoltán Vigh – lead guitar on Track 3
Krisztián Varga – lead guitar on Track 4
Daniele Belli – acoustic guitar on Track 2
Miguel Velasquez Matija – fretless bass on Track 2, 6
Edu Giró – oud, bouzouki, baglama on Track 2,7
Grigoris Mitropoulos – bouzouki, mpaglamas on Track 7
Sanja Smileska – violin on Track 3
Jo Quail – electric cello on Track 8
Issar Shulman – contrabass on Track 2
Cal Rustad – French horn on Track 2, 8
Manuel Domenech – cor anglais on Track 8
Khachatrian Lernik – clarinet on Track 2
Gergő Bille – flugelhorn, trumpet on Track 7
Joakim Toftgaard – trombone, trumpet on Track 7
Fabian Hernandez – saxophone on Track 5
Viktória Varga – narration on Track 3
Annamari Sánta – narration on Track 7, 8

Recording
Recorded in various countries: Hungary, United Kingdom, Romania, Ukraine, Italy, Spain, Greece, North Macedonia, Israel, U.S.A., Colombia, Brazil.

Producer & Sound Engineer
Tamás Kátai, Gábor Vári

Mixing & Mastering
Miracle Sound Szeged, Hungary. Mixed and mastered by Gábor Vári.

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