Review by Sonny for Thy Catafalque - Naiv (2020)

I must admit that this is my first exposure to Hungarian Tamás Kátai and his Thy Catafalque project, as I get very nervous around music tagged as avant-garde because, like Oscar-winning movies a lot of it is "worthy" material, but not especially enjoyable - to me, at least. This however, is quite the opposite as I found it ridiculously enjoyable and quite a lot of fun in places, not at all the pretentious, dissonant racket I was expecting. Personally, I would tag this as progressive rather than avant-garde, for me avant-garde has a certain po-faced, academic connotation that is, mercifully, lacking here.
Naiv is an energetic and lively fusion of metal, electronica, Hungarian folk music and classical instrumentation that, despite being nine separate tracks, feels like a continuous piece with many interesting twists and turns. A refreshingly enjoyable take on the more experimental side of metal, that seems to just revel in the joy of music - and that's not an expression I use often when reviewing modern metal albums!