The scribbling of cursory reviews concerning psych-pop pairing MGMT wasn’t something that I’d necessarily factored into 2017: owing to their steady discographic decline since Oracular Spectacular, 2007, it seemed highly unlikely that Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser would return with anything worthy of my – and by extension, your – time. Yet here we both are, me (imminently) extolling Little Dark Age, and you (hopefully) concurring that yes, the Connecticut outfit should indeed continue to consume moments of your transient existence. Because combining ’ed-bangin’ electro synths with magical realist lyrics (“Policemen swear to God/ Love’s seeping from the guns,” for one; “I grieve in stereo/ The stereo sounds strange” another) really shouldn’t work as well as it does across five minutes which, perhaps improbably, will leave you feeling “giddy with delight” as the recherché duo stage a particularly unpredicted return to form…

Little Dark Age is available now via Columbia Records.