Released at the peak of the voting season, the second full-length album of electron rock band Shiny Toy Guns, Season of Poison, marks a transition for the band. However, it is not a favorable one.

Calling Season the band’s second album is both true and untrue — they have released three “updated” versions of their first album We Are Pilots, each tweaking, adding or removing a few tracks. Compared to these marginal changes, Seasons offers an entirely new experience, not only offering new tracks, but new band-members and a new sound too.

Yet like shiny toy guns themselves, the new album feels cheap, artificial and simply not fun for people with brains developed beyond that of a child’s. Season consists of only 11 tracks; one of them is a mere rerelease of the previously recorded song “Turn To Real Life.” An insult to former female vocalist Carah Faye Charnow, who was booted from the band, the new version is identical except it’s sung by replacement female vocalist Sisley Treasure and is titled “Turned To Real Life” this time around.

This cheap slap in the face highlights a major flaw in the Shiny’s latest — Sisley’s voice and energy does not rival Carah’s, and the inferiority is further made blatant with direct covers of her songs. Sisley’s attempt at softness (“I Owe You A Love Song,” “Turned To Real Life”) isn’t as smooth and effortless, while her attempt at sassy (“When Did This Storm Begin?” “Ricochet!”) just sounds angry and raspy, like an awkward harpy. Whether or not she’s meant to be an exact substitute for Carah, the new vocals are simply empty and unpleasant and thus a hindrance to every song they contribute to.

But it’s not just Carah’s voice that is missing from Seasons. Shiny Toy Guns has shirked off what made their music unique — the quirky peppiness and vaguely ’80s synth beats — in favor of a much more generic sound that is overbearing and drab. Letting their keyboards collect dust, Season features an excessive amount of bad guitar riffs and repetitive power chords, effectively turning from a synth-rock to a pop-rock band. Tracks “Ghost Town,” “When Did This Storm Begin?” and “Money For That” among many others fall into this chasm of clich?, though Chad Petree’s vocals at least remain commendable throughout, most notably in “Money For That.”

Bringing attention to the album’s severe lack of cohesion, even the few synth-reliant songs fail to bring any energy or emotion, nor are they particularly memorable. A few songs come close to being remarkable but fall short for various reasons: “I Owe You A Love Song” lacks vitality, “It Became A Lie On You” never materializes, “Poison” suffers from being stretched way too long with an amateurish organ toccata, while “Blown Away” starts off nicely but then is destroyed by the album’s notorious, weighty power chords.

Season is full of new ideas, and for that much at least, kudos to Shiny Toy Guns. A slightly darker sound, the use of organs, transitional carry-overs — all could have worked marvelously for the band, yet went awry. Consequently, the album is flat and unremarkable. There’s nothing ethereal, nothing fun, nothing pleasant on Season of Poison. It’s just that — caustic, acerbic, choking toxin.

1 1/2 stars out of 5