Customer Reviews

Torture Technique

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I dive into my CD collection and reflect on the Chris Randall's highlight reel, I always gravitate toward Torture Technique as a good place to start. And I say that knowing that Sins of the Flesh was good enough to stay in the selection, and while acknowledging that it spawned songs that are worthwhile additions to a "best of" anthology starring Sister Machine Gun. Still, Torture Technique marked a point where trends began that made me think "Sister Machine Gun" when I heard certain things in a song, making them stand apart from the fold, and where sonic arrays became refinement once SMG made them their playground. This was the work where Randall introduced a little more of what he wanted to do into the fold, rolling with beats that incorporated other styles of music, and where he started meshing in different flavors that weren't associated with "Industrial." When you listen to songs like Sacrifice and hear the base booming through it, you can see deviation that really wasn't present in most bands at the time, and one that would further refine into jazz and blues and other influences on the artist.
And this is also the place where Randall started to solidify the vocals he would begin to use like a powertool.

When listening to Torture Technique, my first inclanation is to skip to Negative because I really like that song. It has been a track that withstood the years, it standing apart as a clean song both in vocals and in sound, and actually reflecting quality way beyond when the CD was pressed. A lot of earlier Wax Trax albums have problems with quality reflecting age, but songs like Negative prove that some defy the medium of years. "My mind remembers who I was when my conscience died. So negative." That's good stuff.
I normally make a B-line for "Cocaine Jesus" afterwards because I like the contrast in the song and because I like the message of the time. It is a minimal song with a reverb effect kicking the vocals into a blurry liquidity, like static in the audio pond, and I think it highlights the lyrics pretty well. "I'm so f-ed up, I don't know my own name. You'd think I'd learn by now that its always the same. Cocaine Jesus." Yeah.
My motion through the tracks then parks me on Nothing, again contrasting the previous two tracks because it has a little more beat than the second, more guitar than the first, and a rawer form of lyrical grey matter. Its something of an angry song, screaming "I want to go down, but I know that I'm nothing," and I enjoy it. It's kinda like that kid that you had with your former wife and you only have to see on weekends, so you enjoy it whenever you see it. Its fun to revisit.
And "Iron Sun" is possibly my favorite track on the album, because I like the way it builds, the noise it uses when it blurs the vocals as it loops them into a stream that finally comes together, and because I like the whole concept that begins to play out in the album here.

From the interior label (a snippet): "Placing his faith in sister machine gun and brother bomb, (he) is allowed back into the womb, back into the darkness - to return to the ultimate refutation of thinghood -to be non-nothing... To be nothing."
This wants you. You want it back.

In his second album, Chris Randall (frontman for Sister Machine Gun), shows us what he can do with his many electronic toys. In The Torture Technique he explores new sounds to add to the jazzed up industrial sound he created with the first album, Sins of the Flesh. And despite the other-worldness of the layers of feedback and distortion, Mr. Randall manages to weave them together with grinding guitars, angry vocals and powerful beats to make an uncommon thing: a catchy experimental album. Songs like Wired, Crackhead, Salvation and Sacrafice, which explore the subjects of deprevity, drug addiction and desperation, will be running through your head for weeks. This album is among my all time favorites and I definately recommend it to anyone who has a taste for the industrial side of music.

This album rocks! If you have any interest for vintage industrial flavor , then this has got to be one of the first you pick up. This is s.m.g's 2nd album and is arguably the masterpeice album in the bands library.It has a very Bleak, creepy, hellish feeling to it. And with songs like "krackhead" "wired" "brother bomb" and "The Torture Technique" they make you wanna get up and a rob a bank. (Not that im trying to influence anybody lol) but the music is some of the best ive heard of all classic cyber-metal. Not to mention the spooky distorted samples that chris randall placed inbetween each song, check out the psycho sounds at the end of "negative" i bet you never heard anything like that before, (sounds kinda like an evil cyborg getting possessed and going haywire, or some kind of alien being mutilated or something?!) so all in all a must for industrial rock fans! Buy this cd, stay home one night, wait till about midnight or so, chill out in your room , put the album on and be tripped out all night!

produced by the folks at Warzone, this album shares its sound and feel with Die Warzau's "Engine" (an excellent album itself). although this album isn't your typical SMG, it still stands strong as an excellent foray into more experimental and classic industrial styles. TTT features the accesible singles Wired (for which a video was made) and Nothing, in addition to danceable tracks like Krackhead and experimental noise pieces like Heaven. overall, an excellent album and one of my personal favorites.

Although I refrain from giving it a 5, it should get it just because the pros outweigh the neg.
First off, I will state that I listen to a lot of different music but really like industrial music, more so, I like techno pop and heavy metal so in my eyes, industrial music is the perfect blend.
Second, I will state that I don't care much for death metal, some is ok but it is- for the most part, kind of lame.
Enough of my personal opinions.
This is the first SMG album I have purchased and was solely because of the strong positive reviews listed on this website (10 years after its release!!!). I can honestly say it was a bit hard to muster at first -- the music structure is very good -- complex but yet simple enough that it doesn't build an overwhelming pressure when listening for extended periods but the vocals leave you listening harder than I want. I still don't understand what he is saying for 75% of the vocals, even after listening to it close to 50 times. This is really the only negative, but it isn't really though because the music structure is soooooo strong, that you don't need to understand more than the chorus and a few versus here and there in order to enjoy it. I don't really think it is a dark cd, its very light and arid but is a very strong sound. Not strong in a Pantera way, more strong in a NIN type of way -- very textured and very driving. I can listen to this cd over and over again for days on end and still enjoy it.

I purchased this album at the same time that I purchased Machines of Loving Grace's Concentration; If I were to do it again, I would've bought 2 different SMG cd's and skipped the MLG...