MGMT: Congratulations (Sony)

By Ben Liew  •  25 May 2010 in Review

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Ditch stardom to fully realise your artistic dreams now! But first, a word of caution to Brooklyn duo Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden: when the hits stop coming, usually so do the fans (and groupies). However, this is what they wanted, for Congratulations to be appreciated as a full body of work without any itchy fingers on the skip button.

Since debut album Oracular Spectacular went ballistic, selling over a million copies worldwide, MGMT have become to hipsters what Moses is to the Jews, although most of them are only familiar with the 2 hit commandments, sorry, songs. Congratulations is a direct reaction to that with no recognisable singles and a slew of spaced-out, modern psych songs.

It’s highly likely that fans will still give this a fair chance, however it’s hardly the masterpiece they’re expecting. What we have here instead are quirky, meandering tracks that exhaust the limits of mashups-for each song, there are several other songs in it. And it gets pretty confusing with diminished boogies and exuberant song structures (such as the 12-minute, middle-album track ‘Siberian Breaks’, which happens to be the best track on Congratulations). Still, it’s likely many will grow weary of this desert soundscape. Hey, even Moses rewarded his people from time to time with some manna, so why not throw us another ‘Kids’?

LISTEN TO: ‘Flash Delirium’
IF YOU LIKE THIS YOU’LL DIG: Empire of the Sun, Black Kids, Vampire Weekend
RATING: 2.5

Kids, it’s time at www.whoismgmt.com.