List | S | Sister Machine Gun | 'Burn' CD 1995

Track:	Name:	Time:
0.	Strange Days1	5:00
1.	Red	5:29
2.	Overload	4:47
3.	Hole In The Ground	5:29
4.	Disease	3:31
5.	Burn	4:45
6.	Dispossessed	3:44
7.	Better Than Me	3:59
8.	Snake	4:57
9.	I Don't Believe	5:36
10.	Inside	8:43
	Total	51:00

Comments:

I bought this album at the same time as its predecessor The Torture Technique, but I got into this one a lot faster since, frankly, it was more my kind of album. It's not as alterna-rock guitar crammed as 'The Torture Technique', it's generally a bit slower and funkier. It seems more well-produced and touched up, and make TTT seem like a haste work.

The first track track is rather slow, funky and mellow, with Chris is "sing mode". It feel quite relaxed, and it seems like a good way to start the album. It's got quite a lot of organ work in it, and even though I'm generally not that found of organ solos it works very well with this track.

'Overload' is a bit faster and noisier, pending between disted "rap mode" vocals over a drumloop and "shout mode" vocals over a rockier chorus and dist guitars. What I particularly like with the vocals is that the "rap" part (half spoken) sounds very spontaneous, as if he had something to say and it just came to him in sync with the beat. The music breaks just before the chorus also fit very well, with a small vocal insert ("and I'm always right") to build it up. There's some organ in here as well, but not as much as on the previous track.

Bouncing into track three, which is a rather heavy, funky and rocky tune with vocals in "shout mode" in the verse and "sing mode" in the chorus. It works really well, and it's a damn catchy song. The funky drums and the screaming dist guitar lay the ground for a very good tune. It reminds me a bit of the first album, but it's funkier.

'Disease' is a bit faster, yet groovier. The vocals are a bit whiney, disted and sung/spoken, but it fits rather well with the track. I like the fairly heavy and simple drum beat, a bit techno-ish alternating-bass-drum-and-open-hihat with the occasional synth tom fill; it would seem stereotypical to a techno track, but since this is more groovy "alternafunkrock" it sounds really good. Not as much an instant hit as 'Hole In The Ground', but really good once you get into it.

'Burn' returns to the slow and mellow sound of 'Red', without copying it completely. The slow, echoing chorus guitar returns, as do the funky drums, but this is perhaps even more laid back. Also, there's a nice synth blip echoing across from left to right; perhaps the first really synthetic sound on the album so far (not counting drumloops and samples). The disted guitar has been turned down in volume, but is still present here and there. The vocals are sung rather relaxed and melodic, very much in the style of the rest of the track. Perhaps a song you can play to 'normal people', yet still with its little quirks.

'Dispossessed' turns up the tempo a bit again, with disted vocals and more guitars in the chorus. It's a little bit like 'Disease', but with more melodic vocals and not quite as techno-bouncy. There are also a few synth lines blipping around in a rather nice fashion.

'Better Than Me' turns up the tempo a bit further; it's rockier and groovier and with more vocals about burning. The dist guitars are there, but often mixed at a rather low level so sometimes they don't even feel present.

'Snake' is a rather funky track that from the beginning dictates a different path; it kicks off with saxophones. Yes, really, and they fit in very well indeed. Normally I'm allergical to saxes, but it depends on how you use them; here it's almost like an old James Brown track. The drums a pretty funky (sampled or just filtered?), and the vocals are in "rap mode" in the verse and "sing mode" in the chorus. Not much guitars on this track, which is probably just as well. It's mostly focused around the funky beat and a saxophone "riff". My first guess would be that they'd sampled the brass from some old record, but I surprised to find that they are in fact played by real people.

'I Don't Believe' is probably one of the slowest tracks on the album; really cool and mellow, kind of like the style of 'Burn', but without the chorus guitar and more disted guitars instead. The drums are again quite funky, most likely programmed with the occasional sampled loops overlayed.

'Inside' sees the return of the saxophones, and the track is probably even more slow and mellow than 'I Don't Believe'. It's pretty much just a slow drum beat and a funky bassline, with the mellow brass on top. It starts getting really cool and relaxed with the sax solo, sort of jazzy. The vocals are mostly spoken/sung rather softly. There's also some jazz/blues guitar solo, which I like a lot. It's a pretty long song, but not as long as you might think by looking at the track time; after 5:30 it fades out and is quiet for about 1:14, then it returns in a slightly different short instrumental version, with some added violin.

Now, I've seen all sorts of "hidden tracks" on CD:s, from the at-the-very-end-of-another-track-with-a-silent-part-in-between thingy (like 'Inside' on this album) to the merely unlisted extra bonus track, but I've never come across anything like this before. Maybe I should check all my other CD:s. Anyway, the thing on this album is that before the first track, there's a hidden track. If you start the CD on track 1 and then press 'rewind', you'll start hearing something at about -0.42. If you continue, you'll hit the wall at about -5:00. Release the 'rewind' button, and the hidden track starts to play. (Note: this is not possible on all CD players. It works fine on my regular player, but not in my computer.) So how is it? Well, I think it's a cover entitled 'Strange Days', but I don't know by what original artist. (I got the tip on rec.music.industrial to search the beginning of the CD - you didn't seriously believe that I found it myself, did you? What idiot would come up with the idea of rewinding before the first track?!) The song is rather rocky, nothing I can say I've heard before and not as good as the rest of the album, but it's a very neat thing to find on a CD.

As an album, it's much more well put-together and coherent than The Torture Technique, and more mature as well. I can't honestly find anything that makes me think of Nine Inch Nails on this album (unlike the two previous ones), which is a good thing in this context. Not that I dislike NIN, but it's nice to see that SMG isn't trying to copy NIN (as has been suggested). This is a very good album to me, it suits my taste very well. I'd like to hear more music like the jazzy/bluesy/funky parts on this album, but I wouldn't really know where to start looking since there is so much that can be classified as jazz/blues/funk. I also like the way those parts have been mixed in with a rock rock/'industrial' type of music, with dist guitars, drumloops and disted vocals. This is by far my favourite SMG album so far, with Sins Of The Flesh as a second.

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