The music video for THY CATAFALQUE’s ‘Cseremisz’ is available on the Season of Mist YouTube channel. Released October 29, the song is the third single from XIII: Sárga erdő, Tamás Kátai’s thirteenth album under the project’s name, due November 20, 2026, through Season of Mist.
Kátai describes the track as an imagined folk song. Its title means Cheremis, referring to the Finno-Ugric people living along the Volga in Russia’s Mari El Republic. In his statement accompanying the release, he connects that subject to his childhood education in Hungary and his lasting sense of distance from the people he learned about.
“We have learned about them in primary school, and they have always been a very distant and mystical people to me,” Kátai explains.
“This song is a fictitious folk song from that region that could be connected to recent historical events as well,” he continues. “We have some traditional instruments like citera and koboz here with accordion and a male choir together with Bálint Bokodi on vocals.”
The recording features Bokodi alongside the Male Choir of Tiszaföldvár, with Anikó Barna playing citera and koboz, Dmitry Karev on accordion, Dario Cei on flute and Árpád Szenti on drums.
The lyrics follow a nighttime passage across the steppe, bringing together a gull over the plain, a wolf in the reeds and a fox in the meadow. A black ship carries sleeping soldiers down the Volga, while the imagery of hooves runs through the song. Its repeated closing line reads “A halál mögöttem száll, utolér,” translated in the announcement as “Death flies behind me, and overtakes.”
Sárga erdő translates as ‘Yellow Forest.’ Kátai describes the album’s twelve tracks as sharing a feeling of wandering through old, half-remembered time rather than following a single narrative. The announcement describes a lighter use of folk and classical elements than on 2024’s XII: A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek.
The record brings together 34 musicians and vocalists, along with a 20-voice male choir, and introduces played drums in place of programmed drums for the first time in THY CATAFALQUE’s history. Kátai handles guitar, bass, keyboards and vocals. He also produced the album and created its cover art; Gábor Vári handled engineering, mixing and mastering. Recording took place at various locations and at Miracle Sound Szeged in Szeged, Hungary. Album artwork photography is credited to Laszlo Horvath.
The Hungarian avant-garde metal project began in Makó in 1998 with Kátai and János Juhász. Its early releases included Sublunary Tragedies in 1999, Microcosmos in 2001 and the self-released Tűnő Idő Tárlat in 2004. Following Róka Hasa Rádió on Epidemie Records in 2009, Rengeteg became Kátai’s first album written and recorded entirely alone and his first for Season of Mist in 2011.
THY CATAFALQUE later received Fonogram awards for Vadak and Alföld. Its first live performance took place at Fekete Zaj in 2021 with 26 musicians onstage, subsequently documented on the concert album Mezolit. In 2025, the project made its debuts at Hellfest, Rockstadt Extreme and Alcatraz and played its first Latin American shows. A second European headline tour opened at Budapest’s Dürer Kert in March 2026.
The new album is available to pre-order and pre-save. Formats include a CD Mediabook, digital download and double gatefold vinyl: black; Purple, Black & White Marbled; Winter Lake blue, crystal and black splatter; Yellow Forest yellow, gold and black splatter; Autumn Leaves crystal-clear leaves-filled vinyl; and Golden Sunset red and gold sunburst.
- Búcsú a piros madártól — 06:04
- Ég-anyám, föld-apám — 04:28
- Dunnák alatt kék mező — 04:04
- Szitakötő — 01:10
- Suhamló éji fák — 05:04
- Puszta — 04:58
- Sirató — 03:58
- Cseremisz — 04:05
- Sárga erdő — 10:15
- Tömbök — 04:59
- Kút vizén nap forog — 04:06
- 87 tavasz, 87 ősz — 10:52
The supplied full runtime is 01:04:03.
