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One listen to ‘You Are The One’ on Shiny Toy Guns debut album leaves you thinking that this is a band destined for stadiums, big stadiums. Super massive Scandinavian synths are joined by intimidating drums and then follows one of the most contagious songs you will hear all year. What’s it about? That doesn’t really matter (As Jonny Borrell will tell you). Stadium songs simply need to sound stratospheric, to prick the ears from the front row to the man selling burgers at the back. Most bands set the sights quite low at first, songs to fill Barflys if you will but not Shiny Toy Guns. Epic and grandiose from the beginning they swoop between credible electro and pyrotechnic pop gargantua via more than a few dodgy ballads.
Similar to the awful Lorraine and the brilliant The Sounds, Shiny Toy Guns have a very Scandinavian sound with frosty atmospherics and clean and clear vocals that contribute to a big if slightly uncharming sound. After the superb ‘Le Disko’ the album takes a nasty turn into the "Ballad Zone" with ‘Starts With One’ and ‘When They Came For Us’, at best they are forgettable at worst they are sappy aural crimes. Now what we need is a big dirty banger to reinstate our spirit - what we get is ‘Don’t Cry Out’ which though catchy is just too wimpy and over produced.
Over production is a problem that blights most, if not all, of ‘We Are Pilots’. Far too often things sound far too clean, pristine and soulless when what we want is for them to be a bit filthy and sexy. Produced by the band themselves perhaps it is symptomatic of the Scandinavian way of clean lines and simplicity but it does not translate into powerful music. ‘Rainy Monday’ is much more impressive and could appeal to the ‘Emo’s’ amongst us with it’s large choruses and introspective lyrics. ‘Jackie Will Save Me’ is a bombastic lo-fi piece of pop-tronica that quite literally saves the listener from entering a boredom-induced coma. Perhaps it’s just the context of this album that makes it sound good but it’s certainly light relief.
Shiny Toy Guns clearly have big dreams and aspirations but they seem to be playing at being a big band before actually having the tunes and the fan base to justify a move into the creative vacuum that is corporate rock. ‘We Are Pilots’ shows potential but sadly they fall short into a pool of vapid and wet music that is ultimately futile.
