Beats Per Minute: MGMT returns to form with ‘Little Dark Age’

MGMT, the famed Connecticut indie duo, is back, dropping its first album in about four and a half years: “Little Dark Age.”

MGMT’s story starts with the unprecedented success of the band’s 2007 debut, “Oracular Spectacular,” an earwormy, psych-pop masterpiece with Andrew VanWyngarden on guitar and vocals, and Ben Goldenwasser on the keyboard, staking their claim as one of the most interesting acts in alternative music.

The album’s three hit singles, “Kids,” “Time to Pretend” and “Electric Feel,” quickly became staples of alt-rock and pop stations alike, garnering the band significant attention and a few Grammy nominations too.

As a preteen at the time of its release, I still remember the driving beat to “Kids” and the stickiness of its hook.

However, MGMT heavily shifted directions on their next project, rejecting any sort of commercial inclinations that the duo’s first album may have followed. “Congratulations,” the band’s 2010 sophomore record, saw MGMT experiment with longer and more complex song structures as well as more layered production and more varied instrumentation.

The band’s 2013’s self-titled project, however, flopped commercially and critically, as it failed to meet most of the peak positions and ratings of its two predecessors.

As such, MGMT fell out of favor with many fans and briefly disappeared from the music scene.

With “Little Dark Age,” the band’s fourth album, MGMT returns to form in terms of musical quality, but not sound.

The dynamic duo shifts gears entirely from their sugar-coated brand of psychedelia, for a darker, more gothic aesthetic.

I first noticed this change in attitude with the LP’s leading single, the album’s title track “Little Dark Age”.

In what is easily the record’s best and most impressive song, “Little Dark Age” sees the band use layered, spacey synthesizers, which loom ominously in the background to set the tone. The murky synth-bass groove cuts in followed by a hollow, effect-soaked vocal performance by VanWyngarden.

The vocal melody reminds me of one from a Joy Division track, whereas the brooding layers of synthesizers seem pulled from Depeche Mode’s catalog. However, the song’s fresh lyricism, impressive structure and kooky production are on-brand for MGMT, keeping the song from sounding like a ripoff of the band’s likely influences.

In fact, combining and repurposing influences and sounds is something Goldenwasser and VanWyngarden consistently stick to throughout all ten tracks of “Little Dark Age.”

Much of the album’s sound seems plucked from the ’80s, but MGMT still imbues their own quirks into almost every aspect of their record, adding a degree of uniqueness that many of their contemporaries lack.

One great example of this weirdness is the album’s opener, “She Works Out Too Much,” one of the most oddly entertaining breakup songs that I’ve heard in some time.

The song follows a couple that breaks up because one individual is supposedly less fit than the other. This peculiar concept is mirrored by a wacky, up-tempo synth-pop beat as well as a laundry list of bizarre musical inclusions: vocoded vocals, fitness instructor samples and a saxophone solo to close the track.

Perhaps what helps drive this record’s idiosyncrasy — one of its strongest qualities — is its diverse collection of contributing pop-music weirdos.

On “Little Dark Age,” MGMT recruits the help of Dave Fridmann, producer for Neon Indian and The Flaming Lips, Connan Mockasin, and Ariel Pink — all of whom dabble in the more psychedelic side of pop music.

The result is a pop album full of ambition and, for the most part, fresh ideas that land with grace. 

However, it is when these ambitions fall short where “Little Dark Age” grows tiresome. The track “Days That Got Away” is not nearly as sticky as the others, and its loose structure makes it feel like a sketch of an idea rather than an actual song. In addition, “Hand It Over” clunks along with a patience-testing pace, a boring vocal performance and lazily-written lyrics.

But hey — I can’t complain with MGMT’s substantial effort here. With “Little Dark Age,” they’ve crafted one of the neatest pop albums I’ve heard in awhile, and I can only hope they continue this in the future.

RATING: 3.5/5

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William Newbegin, ’21, is an assistant sports editor and columnist for The Brown and White. He can be reached at [email protected].