| MGMT/Congratulations |
| Written by Matthew Horton |
| Wednesday, 21 April 2010 14:12 |
|
MGMT
Congratulations
 If this is commercial suicide, then good. The
drifters don’t deserve it. MGMT’s difficult second album is a breeze.You know the story: goofy college boys record some throwaways, they’re souped up by a major label and the fans lap ‘em up like they’re pop’s real deal. The hype machine – plus a couple of true blue hit singles – shifts a million units. Caught in the spotlight, our heroes run scared from the pressure, obliquely disown their debut and hunker down to make a record that means something to them and them alone. So far, so La’s. (Ti do). Preview pieces across the globe damn the album before it’s out and consign the band to the one-hit-wonder slag heap. Job done. But what if Oracular Spectacular wasn’t the flawless gem of fond memory? Listen in 2010 and it adds up to the admittedly great tongue-in-cheek Time To Pretend, the nagging-hook-as-song Kids and yards of dreary filler. At the very most, it’s one side of hits and another of bland hippy bucolia. The odd thing is, Congratulations takes that second side as a starting point and comes up trumps. It finds the fun in the fantasia. Produced by Ex-Spacemen 3 cosmic casualty Pete Kember aka Sonic Boom – obviously the go-to guy for mainstream triumph – MGMT’s foot-shooter is amazing. There’s more than a scent of the psychedelic, but it’s tempered by a shambling, 80s, indie aesthetic, most obviously in hock to The Television Personalities (whose Dan Treacy is celebrated on the album’s jittery second track), but also to the dense beauty of AR Kane, Cocteau Twins, any other murky, melodic 4AD acts you can pluck from the ether. It’s Zombies whimsy filtered through an anorak. Above all, there’s a sense of economy, of ideas whittled and released with minimum fuss. It’s Working and Song For Dan Treacy are pacy, catchy and fun-sized. Flash Delirium, for all its psychedelic switchbacks, is brief for its scope, and the terrific, silly Brian Eno is a hit single where there are meant to be none. Obviously, thrift flies out of the window with the 12-minute Siberian Breaks, but every magpie odyssey needs an epic. This one feels like an ADD skip through Love’s Forever Changes, with bombastic diversions through Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, and boasts the kernels of at least three or four great full-length songs. Brainwaves burst like geysers. If Andrew Van Wyngarden and Ben Goldwasser can survive refusal to spew out another Kids, signs are they’ve got many more fantastic voyages for us to hop on. It’s mildly frustrating that Siberian Breaks’ excerpts are so fleeting, sure, and there’s similar regret that Someone’s Missing and the Spiritualized-at-their-most-festive I Found A Whistle check out just as they take astonishing flight – but better to whet than to weary. Congratulations is a totem for sustained inspiration, deathless melody, the sort of thing careers are built on. If it doesn’t kill them first, of course. Video
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