Album: Season of Poison
Artist: Shiny Toy Guns
Label: Universal Motown
Release date: 4th November 2008
A new album from Shiny Toy Guns is a rare and wonderful thing, given their discography to date consists of one album, We Are Pilots, released three times in various guises. Fortunately, it was a very good album: polished, chilled-out synth-pop made even better by the ever-so-sweet tones of Carah Faye Charnow. In August, it was announced that Charnow was parting ways with the band. Now, the microphone has been taken up by electro kid Sisely Treasure, for their new album Season of Poison.
With the line-up change, the band seem to have pulled a creative U-turn. As soon as opening track “When Did This Storm Begin?” kicks in, with its slightly disturbing theme of domestic abuse, you sense that something fundamental has changed. For god’s sake, she raps. More than once.
While I’m not entirely opposed to the semi-riot grrrl turn they seem to take at times (it turns up again on “Ghost Town”), it’s certainly a culture shock. There’s no denying that Treasure has a unique voice, but the stylistic shift is enormous. Also interesting is the role of guitarist Gregori Petree: on Season of Poison, he takes on his fair share of the vocal duties, maintaining the interesting parallel between the two vocalists that always contributed so much to STG’s sound.
While there are moments when you could almost fool yourself into thinking you were listening to the first album (“I Owe You A Love Song” feels like a welcome return to form), Season of Poison is overall a very different type of record. Some songs make the band sound like a middle-of-the-road melodic rock act (“Money for That”, stand up and be counted), while on others, electronic over-production ruins the vibe (faux-epic “Poison” is particularly guilty here).
Despite all that, it’s a difficult album to dislike. I suspect it’s going to polarise their fanbase somewhat, but it’s fair to say that We Are Pilots was a difficult act to follow. To be fair to the album, Season of Poison has its gems; the disco-rock magic of “Turned to Real Life”, for example. It’s a disappointment, but only a mild one. If you were a fan of the band before, then it’s even odds whether you’ll love or hate the new record, but it’s worth a listen. There’s no sense forming premature judgements based on this review, because it has proved itself a uniquely difficult album to form a cogent opinion on.
Our Verdict:
Marcus Kernohan is the founding editor of Stereokill. 
