The Story of Shiny New Toyz
Shiny New Toyz, a five-piece metal outfit hailing from Vermont, is a band that believes in the transformative power of music. Crafting immersive, dynamic music that draws listeners deep into the moment, where sound becomes connection, presence, and transcendence. Led by a commanding female vocalist, their music fuses heavy, driving rhythms with intricate melodies, clever time signature shifts, and savage dynamic twists, blending alternative rock, metal, and progressive undertones into a genre-defying sound.
The Shiny New Toyz journey is shaped by the distinct histories and influences of its members, resulting in a band whose work is both intensely personal and universally resonant. Every member brings a unique past, a different sound, and an individual fire, creating a collective voice that is richer and more expansive than any singular path. Together, their experiences fuse into music that fuels a collective energy powerful enough to transcend genre.
Their mission is to craft immersive and dynamic musical arrangements and live experiences that pull listeners into the current of sound, anchoring them in moments that feel both sacred and electric.
Fronted by Suzie Tremblay on vocals, the band is guided by her resolve in music as a force for healing and transformation. Her lyrics invite listeners to journey inward—into the quiet depths of their inner world—exploring the landscapes of their own stories and emotions, where hidden wounds and unresolved fears can rise to the surface, offering a chance to acknowledge their pain, face their shadows, and begin to transform their trauma.
With decades of experience Suzie’s vocals are powerful and versatile, — able to roar with metal ferocity, cradle melodies with expression and warmth, or channel meditative stillness. Her influences span genres. From Maynard James Keenan to Jill Scott, Alice in Chains to Portishead, Mudvayne to Deva Premal, Clutch to Erykah Badu, Amy Lee, Tatiana, Christina Scabbia and countless artists in between and beyond. Suzie carries deep gratitude for every voice that shaped her—each influence a teacher who expanded her range, challenged her expression, and nurtured her devotion to meaningful, honest lyrical poetry. Her artistry stretches across metal and rock projects, bass-driven collaborations, and integrates her training as a Yogini, mantra meditation and Sanskrit chanting, infusing her performance with spiritual depth, grounded presence, and heartfelt reverence for the lineage of musicians who inspired her.
Guitarists Shawn Toussaint and John Notaro bring a rare blend of technical mastery, fearless creativity, and deeply personal musicality to Shiny New Toyz. Shawn—an experimental yet precise guitarist with three decades of experience—pulls inspiration from metal and grunge giants like Iron Maiden, Pantera, and Alice in Chains. His playing fuses tightly woven rhythms, intricate time signatures, and a melodic sensibility that gives the band both its backbone and its bite. His riffs hit with weight and carry intention, structure, and expressive depth.
John channels the boundary-pushing spirit of psychedelic, avant-garde, and heavy-progressive music. Influenced by artists like John Zorn, The Mars Volta, Meshuggah, and Dillinger Escape Plan, he layers swirling textures, atmospheric tensions, and unexpected harmonic turns into every composition. His approach transforms songs into expansive, evolving landscapes—musical “playgrounds” where Shawn’s precision and John’s experimentation intertwine.
Together, their guitars create a dynamic and evolving conversation—blending precision with spontaneity, groove with exploration, and structure with creative freedom. The result is a sound that feels alive, dimensional, and continually unfolding, pushing Shiny New Toyz into sonic spaces that are immersive, expressive, and unmistakably their own.
Brad Woodward anchors Shiny New Toyz with bass lines that are both powerful and deeply musical, weaving groove, weight, and melody into the foundation of the band’s sound. Drawing from metal, classic rock, blues, and country, Brad approaches the bass as both a rhythmic engine and a melodic voice—locking in with the drums while subtly shaping the emotional contour of each song. His playing moves fluidly between driving heaviness and soulful restraint, giving the music depth, warmth, and momentum.
With over two decades of experience, Brad brings a seasoned ear and instinctive feel to every arrangement. His long-standing collaboration with John Notaro has fostered a shared language built on exploration, harmonic nuance, and a love for authentic, expressive music. Influenced by bands such as Pantera, Korn, Mudvayne, Lamb of God, and Devildriver, Brad blends aggression with groove, creating bass parts that feel grounded, intentional, and alive.
Behind the kit, Forrest Thomas drives the band with pounding, intricate rhythms that blend raw power with playful creativity. Known for beats that feel earthy and alive, Forrest brings the energy of a wild jam session to every performance. Drawing inspiration from a wide range of music as well as his peers, Forrest approaches drumming with both technical mastery and an openness to experimentation. He creates rhythmic landscapes that are as dynamic and unpredictable as they are grounding, completing the immersive, full-bodied sound of Shiny New Toyz.
Together, Shiny New Toyz blend heavy, driving rhythms, intricate melodies, and layered textures into a sound that is immersive, dynamic, and unmistakably their own. Guided by a steadfast, resonant creative flow, their releases deliver music that is alive, transformative, and transcendent—while still hitting with undeniable force. Through each song and performance, they aim to forge deep, lasting connections with their audience.
A Massive New EP
A new EP release from Shiny New Toyz delivers a heavy rock soiree that combines elements of alternative rock, driving metal, a little hardcore, and robust, melodic vocals that blend into everything adding a sort of graceful but full-bodied texture to the tracks and also giving them this character that you end up really getting attached to by the end of the record. The Out to Get You EP is definitely a banger, and these songs hit hard where they need to. The tracks are very driving sonically, and the distortion and guitar tone are killer throughout. I absolutely adore the combination and genre-bending styles that these songs give because there are also elements of vastness in the undertones and a bit of progressive rock in there too. So, they can take all these different approaches and release them on one fat record that feels huge even with just three songs. The tracks are riddled with inventive and fierce riffs, and the drums have insane energy, which is a massive part of the driving force behind the entire soundscape. The drumming is a bit wild but perfectly in place, super tight, and still gives off this added sort of life to the songs that lets them feel alive and breathing in their own way. There are so many great time signatures and intricacies throughout the track that show their true metal hearts, and they definitely have a ball creating these songs because there's not only a lot of attention to detail, but there is a love for the craft that's there as well. Not just a love for playing their instruments or singing, more a love for writing songs together and coming up with something unique and a little bit outside the box but still driving in badass. But as I mentioned earlier, these tracks have this sort of vastness underneath them and this lets everything feel expansive and kind of big and also adds to that progressive tonality as well. There's also this brilliant vocal approach that happens on the record where the vocalist performs low and high octaves, and this is a cool thing because it gives this certain texture to the vocal approach that you wouldn't get otherwise. I love how each instrument has a way of complimenting the other and all together they have this sort of driving force that lets them come together and push the envelope to bring the songs exactly where they need to be. Although the songs are super tight, there is a hint of looseness and this sort of 90s underground alternative rock tonality as well that lurks in the underbelly of a lot of these tracks and heads and edginess and even a little darkness to things. This is cool too because when you listen to the record, it feels almost like these songs were recorded live on the floor and everyone involved was just feeding off of each other's energies the entire time. I'm not sure if that's exactly how it happened of course, I wasn't there. But, listening to the records certainly makes you want to go see them perform live simply because if this kind of energy is captured on record so well, then seeing them live must be awesome. For a record with three tracks, you get a good 20 minutes of amazing heavy music and all of it comes together with an element of gracefulness which I dig. By the time the record is over, you feel very satiated because these songs were big. This is definitely a release that you want to listen to all the way through because listening to one track may give you a gist of what's to come but it doesn't give you the full spectrum of what the whole record has to deliver. Again, it's three tracks long but a lot is going on. There are a lot of layers that can be peeled back, a lot of sick riffs, a lot of amazing drumming, and just these textures and atmospheres that they create. I would strongly suggest turning this one nice and loud.
"Shiny New Toyz are a brand-spankin'-new metal outfit from the brutal wasteland that is St. Albans. (Just kidding, St. Albans, you're beautiful!) The five-piece has a lot of Vermont metal history in its DNA, with members having served time in bands such as Untapped, Mushroom Teeth and Why Not, and it shows. On their debut EP, Out to Get You, Shiny New Toyz hardly sound like newcomers, with powerful, heavy songs featuring sophisticated arrangements, clever time signature shifts and savage dynamic twists.As opposed to headbangers about death and darkness, Shiny New Toyz and vocalist Suzie Tremblay espouse an almost motivational bent, whether she's pleading with people to "stop the negative talk" on "Chaos" or balancing imagery of the world's end with lyrics such as "Remember you're sublime." It's a refreshing combination of doom-laden music and affirming lyrics that are more resolute than contrarian.Key Song: "Lunacy" Why: It's the record's most punishing track as Tremblay gets aggressive on the mic while the band lays down a furious jam."
~ Chris Farnsworth Seven Days
