Thy Catafalque - Róka Hasa Rádió (2009)^{Release ID: 2636}

It's bands like Thy Catafalque that keep the metal world interesting.  While most metal bands want to focus on being as heavy as possible, these Kungarian metal masters take an unconvential route and focus more on taking the listener to strange new worlds even Picard didn't discover.  And while Rengeteg might be their best album, the preceding album, Róka Hasa Rádió, is more surreal.

Róka Hasa Rádió constantly switches from the raw heavy metal energy and the surreal instrumentation and the dreamlike soundscapes constantly, many times within the same song, but with the proper build-up effect, so that there's never any inconsistency.  And falling back on old tricks isn't much of a problem for this album since it oftentimes has new ideas which build off of old ones.  Sometimes there are songs that focus more on a surreal, charming atmosphere like "Piroshátú," which kickstarts Side B.  The astral sound effects used to bring the atmosphere to maximum potency ring of Metroid, and at the same time pair flawlessly with the Hungarian folk elements when they appear.  But songs like "Köd Utánam" will mingle occasional robotic or sci-fi effects with Hungarian folk while blasting through death metal instrumentation.

There is only one real problem with the album.  Each song focuses on drawing out the atmosphere through repetition, which occasionally gets a little old, though still enjoyable.  And as a result, its constant usage of 4/4 timing makes it feel less avant-garde and prog than it propably should.  Nevetherless, I'm pretty sure I'll come back to this album eventually.  It gave me a lot to enjoy and a lot to look forward too once I was certain it wouldn't run out of new tricks.