NAIV

Each release of Thy Catafalque brings a new flavor and excitement to experience. From the extremely atmospheric Tűnő idő tárlat, to the more overtly progressive Meta. With their 9th studio album, Naiv, the group decided to almost entirely scrap their more black metal sound, and go for a more jazzy side instead.

For a time, I would considered this to be their best record to date, but with repeated listens I soon found it to be a little less of a masterpiece than I initially thought. I still think the record is pretty great, but overtime I have been feeling it to be not as good as some of their other stuff.

I do not like to go too much into negativity, especially this early on with my review, so I am gonna shed some light upon this record. For one, the musicianship here is just as strong as ever. I believe Thy Catafalque's music creates a good balance between intensity and melodically charged music. Many of my favorite progressive metal bands have done these kind of balance acts before, such as Between The Buried And Me and Ne Obliviscaris, but Thy Catafalque's balance feels a bit more unique, with their use of electronic and folk music that intertwine with their more metal driven sound. While admittedly it may not be the most original thing in the world, since other metal bands have utilized folk and electronic elements in their work, I think Thy Catafalque certainly give it their own unique spin, and here they certainly spin well.

I think another thing I like about this record is there are no bad songs. Every song on here sounds great, or even amazing, with a very wide structure that allows the music to breathe and develop into their own ideals. My favorite track on the record has to be Embersólyom, with its very rhythmic and passionate instrumentation, combined with Martina Horváth's beautiful voice, it certainly gives a very lovely experience.

That being said, I do think, while the jazz and prog are certainly on point here, I feel like Naiv does one thing wrong, and that is the actual metal, because it isn't quite all there. I am guessing the band was trying to go with an attempt of being a bit less metal focused, kinda like what Dream Theater did with Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence, but I feel like it takes a distracting measure in things, almost practically forgoing the band's more black metal exterior in favor for a bit TOO much prog. It is like the opposite of the problem I had with Alföld, where that album had too much black metal, this record has too much prog. I think what works best for Thy Catafalque is trying to find a middle ground, whilst also trying new stuff. I guess that is why I much prefer past records like Sgùrr or Meta, as they perfectly encapsulates that balance well, whilst also having their own identity to boot.

I also have found this record to be kinda top heavy. The first 4 tracks are very amazing, and would easily make this album a 4.5-5 star rating to me, but after that we get some tracks that feel a bit less golden to me. They are still good, but I think the first half left a lot to be desired, and I do not think that desire has been fulfilled.

While this is a pretty great record, it is also very mixed. It has a lot of great and fun moments, and some stellar musicianship, but it doesn't feel like the Thy Catafalque that we all know and love, and the tracklisting doesn't quite feel all too great upon repeated listens. I think this record should definitely be listened to, but maybe after checking out their other records first to get a better picture of the Thy Catafalque sound.

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