MGMT’s new album is their most confident, exciting record in years

MGMT has never been one to listen to critics. Or fans. Or anyone, really.

After the monumental success of their 2007 debut Oracular Spectacular, college pals Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser seemed far more interesting in indulging in their own guilty, experimental pleasures than pleasing others.

If their debut showed off how masterfully the duo could craft a pop tune, their following releases proved just how anti-pop they could be — jumping around the fringes of psychedelia, art rock and ambient music.

In 2018’s Little Dark Age, the band’s latest release, it seems MGMT has finally found their comfort zone, nestled snugly between the warm, vibrant psych-pop of their hayday and the burgeoning experimentation of today’s indie scene.

In the opening track, “She Works Out Too Much,” the band makes it clear they have traded in their washed-out, '60s sound and late-Beatles emulations for the flashy, glam-pop of later years. They manage to do this while maintaining their vintage sound, just slightly updating it.

A heavy sampling of cheesy '80s workout audio bites makes their new aesthetic clear: Absurdity is the name of the game. The song sounds as if Mac DeMarco was hired to play keys in a disco group, to a surprising degree of success at that, providing a welcomed groove into VanWyngarden’s comical analysis of asymmetrical exercise habits.

Relentlessly Bowie, the album’s title track and lead single dives head first into the group’s synthpop influences, perpetuating the alternative scenes recent love affair with the late glam icon (see: LCD Soundsystem’s American Dream.) It’s also the album’s first reminder that MGMT can still write a pretty infectious chorus when they want to, as well as a bassline that will dance along with you.

“When You Die” firmly cements the group’s reinvention within the ascendant off-kilter, soft rock genre. The song is of the likes of Foxygen, Mac DeMarco and, most of all, experimental pop royalty Ariel Pink, who co-wrote the track.

It’s a collaboration that may not have made sense a couple years ago. However, seeing as MGMT’s newest offering sounds more like one of Ariel Pink’s warped, jangle-pop experiments than it does any of their previous psychedelic endeavors, the collaboration assuredly works.

The track sounds as if a '70s folk rock band was playing the soundtrack for one of your nightmares, as the excitable singer chuckles their way around the inescapable void of permanent nonexistence.

The duo kicks the glamor into full gear on “Me and Michael,” with sparkling harmonies and synthesizers setting the stage for crooning vocals that The Smiths would be proud of.

Shamelessly embracing the cheesiness and fun of any good '80s pop song, the chorus exudes an undeniable confidence, forcing any good-faith listener to overlook most of the track’s intentional corniness.

The album’s middle tracks jump around both sonically and thematically, to varying degrees of success. This transpires from the attempts at modern social commentary on “Tslamp” (an acronym for “time spent looking at my phone”), to the dark-discotheque of “Days That Got Away,” all the way to the Pink Floyd-minded psychedelic jam of “When You’re Small.”

But the album’s real kicker is its closing track: “Hand It Over” has all of MGMT’s strengths in a single song. It’s rhythm is low-maintenance while massively rewarding; it’s experimental in its production but unbelievably accessible in its execution. Catchy rhythms support even catchier verses, culminating in an infectiously simple hook that serves as a reminder of just how great a pop tune the duo can make.

Overall, Little Dark Age is certainly the group’s most confident and exciting record in years, refining their later experimentation and adding to their long list of alternative anthems. Even when they don’t quite hit their mark, MGMT manages to be interesting at the very least. The album’s peaks, however, are able to achieve far more than that.

Grade: B+