Cianide have been also-rans in the underground for decades now, releasing albums of perfectly competent but unremarkable Death Metal throughout their entire career. This was their debut, released way back in 1992 when Death Metal was really starting to get popular. This probably had a hand in making the album fly under the radar at the time, which would be tragic if this were a lost gem like many people claim it is, but I think the biggest reason for that happening is that it's just not very compelling.

While their later material is more typical Death Metal, The Dying Truth is Death/Doom done the old way, with Sabbatine grooves and slower tempos mixed with Death Metal brutality and maybe the occasional blastbeat. This kind of thing was done brilliantly by Autopsy and Slowly We Rot-era Obituary, bands that Cianide try hard to emulate but fall short by a wide margin. Part of it is the production, which is appropriately murky and underground, but the guitars sound like they're underwater and make the riffs less distinct as a result. The drums also suffer from this as they plod along like pots and pans, especially in the blastbeat sections where they sound like someone slapping a tin of cookies. This could be overlooked with great riffs and strong songwriting, but outside of the grooving opener "Mindscrape" and the lurking "Crawling Chaos", none of the songs really stand out, and the album just sort of drops into a miasma of burbling riffs and wannabe-Tardy grunts that doesn't stick with me no matter how much I listen to it.

Despite what you may have heard, this album isn't very impressive. It's certainly the best and most interesting album the band has done, but it's neither as ferocious nor as menacing as the competition at the time, and certainly not up to the standards they set. Some bands remain obscure despite their quality, but in that regard, Cianide were doomed from the start.