Album: MGMT
Artist: MGMT
Music: Columbia
Price: $11.88 on Amazon.com
Rating: ***
Shantanu David
MGMT exploded into the public consciousness with three singles Kids,Electric feel and Time to pretend (from their debut album Oracular Spectacular) the last of which got a lot of play,thanks to the opening credits of the cult hit 21. The band,founded by vocalists/guitarists/synth-players Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser,brought psychedelic rock back into the mainstream. With their second album,Congratulations,they left behind synthpop and moved into a territory dominated by guitar. Their third self-titled album,MGMT,finds them deeper in the mushroom forest,cranking out music that is firmly in their own style. The album gets better every time you listen to it,with a few tracks clearly working. Others not so much.
The album kicks,or rather meanders,off from the static-laced Alien days,weirdly wonderful from its prelude (and subsequent chorus) of a childs vocals. Cool song no.2,the albums cynical-cum-whimsical second track,is bass-heavy,with The Phantom of the Opera-style piano solo and vocal acrobatics that would put a capella group on its toes. The piano work plays a more prominent role in Mystery disease,a pure psychedelic pop-rock complete with all the right distortions. The nostalgia really takes off with the duos Introspection,a cover of a track by the uber-obscure 60s psychedelic band,Faine Jade. Your life is a lie is a riff-y,heavy-on-distortion ditty as is A good sadness.
Astro-mancy is one of those long profitless journeys with no clear destination in mind. Nor is it actually reached,but maybe thats the whole point of the track. If John Mayer can plan a trip to Japan when hes stoned (on which he wont even go,goes the song),one can totally see MGMT on a head trip through space on whatever unprescribable pharmaceutical theyre on. I love you too,death is one of the stand-out tracks an eerie,shimmery number which is so similar to The Velvet Underground that one almost expects Nico to join in the chorus. It doesnt help that VanWyngardens vocals are nigh identical to Lou Reeds and the track follows a very similar musical progression to Undergrounds Heroin. Plenty of girls in the sea and Orphan of fortune finish off the album to a vaguely mellifluous sound,but leave you without any electric feel.
shantanu.david@expressindia.com
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