Formed in 2003, the Croatian death metal formation known as True (what’s in a name? The truth I tell ya!) has released two demo efforts so far (of which the latter received and official release in Mexico). This year they deliver their new full lenth through Geenger Record, entitled Still Life, after the style of art which is well represented in the nice artwork. Now for the music…

True claim to play crusty punk death metal, which is mostly true. Punk death metal, yet with a very nice production for the style. Sounds like they’ve surpassed the squats on this disc. No matter, because True have a trick up their sleeve no death metal band has, the use of a traditional Croatian instrument, the tambura. It’s a sort of Greek sounding guitar (bouzouki) which is very high pitched and sounds a bit like a gypsy instrument. Luckily it doesn’t take the lead too often, because I tend to get annoyed by the fast strumming of this instrument. Yet it is a prominent instrument in the overall album, something of which I don’t know if many metalheads will like it. Yet they’ve been doing it for quite some time now, so it must be working for them I suppose.

 

Next to the addition of this tambura, there is not much innovation going on. Just plain and simple death metal that ranges from fast blasting to mid paced headbanging to slow, almost doomy parts. All the riffage is pretty much as straight forward as you can expect from a death metal act with very few technical escapades. I guess if you’re a fan of ethnic instruments and straight forward death metal, you just might have found your cup of tea here. I for one am not too enthusiastic though…