SHINY TOY GUNS
"Season of Poison"
Released: Nov. 4, 2008
Genre: Rock / Electronica

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An great meld of rock and electronica that should be treated as a unit rather than as a collection of individual songs.

I TEND TO avoid buying entire albums like the plague.

In fact, I have only bought three full CDs in my life, and even with those I can only listen to parts of them at once.

My music taste is fickle. I might like a genre for a while, and then get tired of it and want to listen to something new, which is which I prefer buying individual songs and mixing them up on playlists.

Some have told me that albums are designed to be listened to all at once, and so breaking them up into singles ruins the point to an extent. I tend to disagree. Not every song on a CD is good, so it makes more sense to only buy the ones you like, right?

I've just been proved incorrect. American alt rock/electronica band Shiny Toy Guns' sophomore album, "Season of Poison," sounds amazing — but only if I listen to it all the way through.

Certain songs are more interesting than others, but individually they are nothing special. Together, repeated themes and sounds create an interwoven and complex whole that I keep coming back to over and over again.

The first song in the lineup is "When Did This Storm Begin," which begins with a slow instrumental buildup interspersed with seemingly random sounds, like a faraway voice speaking through an intercom and a truck backing up.

As the song continues, these sounds fade into the beat, until the lyrics abruptly break through after about a minute. Vocalist Chad Petree provides the chorus, while Sisely Treasure (great name, right?) raps in between.

After that, there's no break from the originality. "I Owe You a Love Song" is slower at first, but then brings back similar beats from the first two songs. In listening to this, I was struck by the chemistry between the two vocalists (Petree and Treasure). Their voices are really quite different, but they overlap in ways that cause them to blend together after a while. This feels like it should get repetitive, but here it works very well.

Unfortunately, I find it a little hard to understand what they are saying sometimes because of how their voices meld with the music, which makes it harder to sing along.

Despite that, this album just gets better as it goes along. The last two tracks, "Turned to Real Life" and "Frozen Oceans" would be my favorites if I had to pick some. "Frozen Oceans" is slower and more contemplative, but it also brings the entire album together with its rising crescendo of a chorus.

If I had one complaint about this album, it would be about the title track, "Poison," which is eighth in order. At eight minutes long, it drags a lot at the beginning, and feels more disconnected and incoherent than the other tracks.

However, I love the chorus of this song, despite the rather suicidal lyrics ("Painfully, I prepare a release, and poison takes me away"). The problem here is that the typical chorus-verse structure suddenly ends around minute five, and is followed by some interesting but very incongruous instrumental bits featuring a synthesizer overload.

In general, though, "Season of Poison" is a great album to listen to while you're doing something else. The cool beats and superb vocals fade into the background seamlessly, providing uninterrupted creative concentration while still being original and fun. I will definitely check out STG's first album ("We Are Pilots") once I get a chance.