THY CATAFALQUE, BONG-RA – Zaścianek, Kraków

9.04.2026, Zaścianek, Kraków – Poland.

The concert took place in quite small club called Zaścianek and as far as I heard it was sold out, so it was packed with fans. The stage was really close, so it allowed everybody to experience the performance even better and created great atmosphere. Such concerts are one of a kind if the fans interact with artists and the band does the same the other way – it was definitely the case this time.

It started with Dutch band called BONG-RA which plays extremely heavy and dark music. The band is led by the founding and only permanent member Jason Köhnen who sings and plays bass. For live acts, he is joined by two guitar players. The band does not use live drums, but they are played as prerecorded together with all kinds of electronic sounds. The two guitarists created a massive wall of sound with their 7 and 8 string guitars. Jason with his roars and growls took the experience to another level, as his voice was very deep and haunting, additionally enhanced with some extra effects. I did not know the band very well before the concert, so I cannot name the titles that were played. Musically, I am not a big fan of such electronic oriented metal like MINISTRY or SAMAEL, as those are the bands I would mention if somebody asked me about the similarities to more known names. Still, the show made a good impression on me thanks to really dark and evil atmosphere the band generated throughout their set. I definitely liked them more in live version than on albums.

It took around half an hour to rearrange the stage for the main act. THY CATAFALQUE started with a great opener – “Néma Vermek”. The song from the previous album called “Alföld” charged the audience with energy by both music and the vocal performance of two growlers this evening – Balint Bokodi and Gábor Veres. They were mostly singing at the same time and it added extra dynamics to the song. There were two more singers Martina Veronika Horváth and Gábor Dudás who both performed with clean vocals on many other songs on that evening. What is more, if I understood correctly, the second guitar player of the band had to leave the tour a few days before the show in Kraków, so he was replaced by both BONG-RA guitarists who also took shifts. As a result, almost each song was played with different line-up configurations. Only Tamás – the leader of the band and bass player; the drummer and first guitar player were the core musicians on the stage.

Due to very wide variety of styles this bands implements, it is hard to list the best ones on that evening – they were all great. The band decided to play songs from most of their albums, except the very earliest ones. Still, they did not forget about their black metal roots by performing probably the most raw song on the evening called “Jura” from album called “Sgürr”. It was not the only one that showed the extreme side of band as “Szarvas” or “Csillagkohó” were equally fast and brutal. On the other side, “Mezolit” proved that the band can also play heavily and make a doom metal song with really slow riffs and deep growls. There were also a lot of chances to witness how great singer Martina is, for example in folk oriented “Embersólyom” and “Töltés” or in beautiful ballad “Ködkiraly”. This last one is from the latest album “XII: A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek” and this song ends with another heavy part which live made a great impression. First Martina sang alone with only slight musical company of Tamás and guest cello player. Second part was totally different, although based on the same melody in the chorus, but the heaviness and energy was one of a kind. All the singers took part in it and that was definitely one of the highlight of the evening. I really adore how Tamas is able to compose such versatile music and make it sound coherent under the name THY CATAFALQUE, no matter if it is folk, death metal,  black metal or heavy rock like the title track from the last album that was the final song of that day.

Most of the musicians that were exchanging their roles were standing on the side of the stage during the whole show. All of them, even when not performing, were smiling all the time to those standing on the stage, they were shooting some videos and banging their heads to live music. I really liked that, because it is clear that they like their company and, most of all, they love what they are doing. I am sure that they also liked the performance of the crowd and their reaction was also the thing that pushed them to play with passion. Whole concert was filled with enthusiastic reaction of the audience and, as I wrote above, the venue was quite small, which gave us all the chance to interact with each other and the band. That was the core of great metal concert that took place on that evening in cases of both bands that played on that day.