RÓKA HASA RÁDIÓ

8/10

"Roka Hasa Radio" is unexpectedly one of the very best Avant-Garde Metal albums of the last few years.

Hungary is one of the most unexpected countries to have a good metal band. We know that in Ukraine there's the black metal band Drudkh and Nokturnal Mortum, but nobody I can think of comes from Hungary. Except for Thy Catafalque, which with "Roka Hasa Radio", have completely blown me away, like I never thought they would. This is the band's fifth studio album, surprisingly, meaning that they've been around for a while, without receiving the attention they fully deserved. But now in 2009 with this new album it seems like the band got a little less unknown by the public. And thank god.

What hit me the first time I heard this album was the huge amount of experimentation, keyboards and synthesizers used, that are accompanied in second hand with the incredibly dark sounding guitars, distorted or not. Thy Catafalque's style can't really be labeled as simple Avant-Garde Metal: there is a lot of Industrial Metal (combined with Black Metal), Electronic, Ambient, and maybe some Folk elements as well. All the songs have amazing arrangements, even though with a kind of harsh production. The thing that I found most interesting about these nine songs is that all of them, melodically, have a pretty noticeable Eastern Europe feel, even when the music is at it's loudest. This shows how the country of a band can influence them. Of course, all the songs are sung in Hungarian, so I don't see why I should even try to understand them, even if I do translate them.

Highlights are most definitely the first two tracks: "Szervetlen" , an eleven minute epic, probably the heaviest song off the album. After te dark Ambient intro, we hear amazing Industrial metal guitars and rhythmic section, with Black Metal growls to go with that. Of course there are tons of variations during the whole song, which is another reason to love it. But the second track, "Molekularis Gepezetek", more than nineteen minutes long, is even moe complete and epic sounding, even though not as heavy, and much more open to experimentation. We hear, during the middle of the song, a great, techno Jazz like section, followed by a beautifully female singed part, that moves me every time I listen to it. Most definitely the strongest highlight of the album. Then they're the rest of the album, none of them as long as these two tracks, but still very much worth the listen. But it's obvious that after those two songs all the other even songs are much more experimental and Avant- Garde, with only a few harsh parts here and there. But the main instrument here are definitely the keys and synths, that really give a unique atmosphere to the music. Keep also in mind that nearly every time there is some great, great melodies, which are as always inspired by Eastern folk music.

An album that completely blew me away, even though I discovered it two years after it's original release. I have only a few complaints about it (the last two songs could have been improved from many points of view), but it still remains one of my favorite metal albums of 2009.

Thy Catafalque's fourth album is a bizarre black metal mutant which constantly surprises the listener with the range of genres the band manage to cram into it - there's folk, space rock, ambient moments and more as well as some vicious metal outbursts to be enjoyed here. I'm particularly impressed with the way the band are able to explore all these different styles without the album becoming unfocused, and also the way the album is constantly in transition; just when you think you've got a handle on what they're doing at any particular point, the compositions start incorporating little twists that build up to move the soundscape in an entirely different direction. That said, these constant shifts can also be a weakness, since the band often move on from interesting portions which I feel could have been explored further.