Sister Machine Gun is essentially Chicago electronic musician Chris Randall's one-man outfit. The industrial sound of this 1993 debut on Wax Trax shouldn't surprise anyone, considering Randall's label affiliation and close ties to longtime industrial purveyors
KMFDM. His music bears more of a resemblance to
Nine Inch Nails than the label's more dance-oriented artists, as the verse/chorus formula and conventional drum patterns present on
Sins of the Flesh are clearly influenced by
Trent Reznor's structured pop. Songs like "Sins of the Flesh" and "Degenerate" have an unmistakable pretty hate machinery, and Randall's dramatic whispering and repeated hooks follow the
Reznor formula to the letter. Unfortunately,
Sister Machine Gun display neither the vibrant programming nor the skilled songwriting needed to pull off great industrial for the masses. Listeners vexed by
Reznor's glacial recording pace would do better to pick up a
Filter,
Gravity Kills, or
Stabbing Westward disc before settling for
Sins of the Flesh. ~ Vincent Jeffries