Burn

Album Review

By 1995, the industrialized Trent Reznor copy material that Sister Machine Gun featured in their earlier recordings was rapidly becoming passé, prompting the outfit's stylistic shift toward mellower, more dance-oriented material. On Burn, the fourth full-length release for Chris Randall's Sister Machine Gun project, the distorted vocals and crackling guitars of the group's previous discs are replaced with a cleaner sound that recalls Depeche Mode and the Jesus and Mary Chain as much as any '90s industrial artist. The results are mixed, but still represent an overall improvement. Randall lacks the vocal charisma to draw attention to his limited-range melodies, but the smoother tones of Burn are infinitely more listenable and less derivative than Randall's edgier material. The depth and complexity of the mixes confirm a modicum of growth for the singer/guitarist/programmer. Their was a lot of ground to make up though, as Sister Machine Gun's early releases were of no real importance at all. Getting himself more in step with '90s electronic and dance trends, Burn marks the creative growth of a hard-working electronic artist.