Artist: True
Label: Geenger Records
Release: 2010
Length: 38:20
Rating: 3.5/5
True – the Samobor metal crew with an interesting twist, the use of the tamburica, an authentic sound inherited from the Croatian island of Brač – have put out their most ambitious release yet with their third album. Up to this day, of course. On it the guys have nailed the clearest profile of their musical direction so far, and within it they convincingly deliver what’s most in demand: a musical adventure that feels fresh, interesting and instantly recognizable.
These guys are heralds of a musical current that revels in living inside a world where not a single ray of light or hope shines through. The last God-forsaken place on Earth. Satan’s classic “hideout,” where the scoundrel borrows the craziest ideas, dripping with the seeds of evil.
You could say True have managed to pull off a real, clearly defined collision of the most extreme elements, stemming from the foundations of grind, black metal (blast beats, the leading melos of the tamburica), death metal (the vocals, the sound of the guitar riffs) and folk music (the opening track Intro, which gives you absolutely no clue what’s about to hit you next), and to develop a musical track of their own. The songs are put together in a lively way, with the guys stringing together their leading motifs with an unpredictable course of events. Yes. You guessed it. The songs are built from shifting rhythmic textures that keep a touch of spontaneity. The way the passages are joined is fluid and vivid enough that the songs keep a red thread running through them, the recognizability of something unique, and with their dynamic content they keep the listener alert and engaged the whole way through. The rhythms are often generously riddled with blast beats. In the production, the tamburica motifs often join the chopping blast beats up front. Interestingly, the band doesn’t build the spectrum of the sonic picture by pushing the guitar riffs to the front and cranking them up. Those stay somewhat veiled in the background, but with a “greasy” sound, crunching “from the second plane,” drowned out by the machine-gun racket of the drums, which feels very grindy. Maybe that choice is exactly where the bad luck lies, since the accentuated snare sounds quite “boxy” at times. In metal you’d expect the opposite. Guitar riff-grinding to the max, including a second guitar layered in. In True’s case, though, the band gave an important role to the tamburica, which is shoved all the way to the front of the production. The devastating “growled-out” vocal is something not every serious death metal band would be ashamed of.
With this approach you can’t really draw objective conclusions about what still needed building up. The band clearly didn’t want a black metal production, so the guitars are pushed somewhat into the background and aren’t backed by extra fast-picked riffs. Still, the generous integration of blast beats and the swapping of guitar picking for the tamburica is a very welcome atmospheric replacement in this case. Especially given that the tambura “circles” through characteristic tunes that bring to life the lashing of the wind and the howling of wolves (the melos of black metal) in its most ruinous blackness. Who Am I?, in its expression of musical experiment and extreme bloodletting in pursuit of a one-of-a-kind mood, is one of the most interesting original pranks the band pulls off on the album.
The album “Still Life” is meant strictly for the narrowest circle of listeners. The distinctive atmosphere the band creates is the most convincing weight the listener’s ears latch onto and follow. The organic sound of the tamburica works in contrast to the growl-vocal “grinding,” like a kind of relief valve for the unbearable blood-vomiting of the album’s vocal sludge, and that’s why we can’t really count True among the orthodoxly extreme bands. The guys will be interesting not only to fans of grind and black metal, but also to all of you who are looking for an atmosphere born from the most hidden parts of the dark side of the human soul. You also need to feel close to the sense of free and unburdened authorial expression that comes with the band’s bold testing and experimenting. With “Still Life,” True managed to offer an exceptional collision of destructive power, conciseness, unpredictability and realness. The band doesn’t hide its talents, and if it sticks to the path it has laid out, it can distill plenty more exciting things from its creative vision. Calling it “avant-garde” would be a bit much. There’s definitely still a huge amount of untapped room in the arrangement of the structures, as well as in the work on the sound production.
If they keep to the direction defined by the album “Still Life,” the band will surely deliver another very nice musical surprise in the future. But watch out! This is music for those of you who have spent your whole lives licking your eternally bleeding wounds and believe that only total destruction can give birth to new life.
Lineup
Rtz666 – vocals
Nikola Radovanić – tambura
Mitja Greifhoner – guitar, vocals
Filip Fabek – bass guitar
Luka Kovač – drums
Production
Ivan Jakić
Tracklist
1. Intro
2. Once
3. Massacre
4. The End
5. Okus Crnila
6. Who Am I?
7. I Kill For Nothing
