Description
Too True is the third full-length by Dum Dum Girls. It was recorded in late-2012 and early-2013 by producers Richard Gottehrer (Blondie, Go-Gos) and Sune Rose Wagner (of the Raveonettes), with Alonzo Vargas engineering at East West Studios in Hollywood.
Too True finds Penny calling on the assistance of Richard Gottehrer (who wrote "My Boyfriend's Back," "Hang On Sloopy" and "I Want Candy," among others) and The Raveonettes' Sune Rose Wagner, both of whom know their way around garage-rock – and both of whom help Dum Dum Girls split the difference between the guitar-fueled rumble of a '60s basement and the synth-friendly shimmer of an '80s studio. But the additional polish never overwhelms the songwriting.
Dum Dum Girls' music has long thrived on its concision, and that extends to the economy of phrasing at work here. Penny's songs are no less quotable for their simplicity, whether she's name-checking 19th-century poet Arthur Rimbaud ("Rimbaud Eyes"), fitting the album's title into the chorus of "Too True to Be Good" or dispensing a perfect goth-pop mission statement in "Evil Blooms": "Why be good? Be beautiful and sad." On Too True, Penny and Dum Dum Girls need barely 30 minutes to prove that a band can be all three at once.
