It seems like a story of two bands. When Gregori Chad Petree is singing, it is like Bono in front of a live electronica. When Carah Faye Charnow takes center stage, it’s Miss Kittin with a lot owed to Joan Jett and Debbie Harry. Either way, Shiny Toy Guns has a disco flash and theatrical flair while showing their own debt to their grandfathers in Jimmy Eat World on songs like “Rainy Monday.” Petree looks like a shaggy-bearded folk singer who has been let loose aurally and emotionally by the prompting of the band.
Appropriately enough in those days before Christmas, “Shaken” (with the chorus lyric, “I will wait it out”) lines up with an Advent theme (waiting for the birth of Christ, waiting for His second coming), and the song even makes reference to “all-consuming fire,” a phrase usually used for the Holy Spirit.
