Shiny Toy Guns
Shiny Toy Gun's new single is out now
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Friday, 20, Apr 2007 02:22
Who's next? As a certain legendary band once asked. We seek to delve into the music industry and come up with a bountiful collection of stars to be. Or is that just wannabes?
This week it's the turn of heartfelt rockers Shiny Toy Guns.
Since the Killers all grew beards and went all U2 on us there's been a bit of a gap in the musical marketplace for some semi-credible US indie/emo/electro outfit who know how to wield a synth organ properly.
Sure the Bravery stepped up to the plate. And The Feint had a bit of a swing. But no one seems to have cracked the sing-a-long-at-the-end-of-the-party vibe that Brandon Flowers and co had down circa 2004.
Now it's the turn of LA electro-pop four-piece Shiny Toy Guns. While they've been about for a while now - since 2003, fact fans - they've been widely ignored outside of LA and their own little myspace clique.
In fact, Cahah Faye Charanow, Gregori Chad Petree, Jeremy Dawson and Mike Martin have been kicking around so long they've managed to release the same album, We Are Pilots, three times already.
This time round it has the backing of a major label and some public exposure from plays on the GTA 3 and FIFA computer game soundtracks.
Current single 'You are the one' isn't going to win any awards for originality, but its shouty emo sensibilities are quite charming really.
Other songs off the three-times-released album are spot on. Especially 'Le Disko', a song surely destined for a summer a tune everyone loves and then sort of forgets about, but in a good way.
Critics are already saying that Shiny Toy Guns are "anthemic and heartfelt", probably something of a credibility kiss-of-death, inspiring, as it does, images of Matt Bellamy's overwrought, pyrotechnic noodling.
Yet give this band a chance, especially when they ditch those choruses and emotion, and embrace some electro-rock, and you just might find yourself singing along come the bottom of the ninth.
James Cooper