Little Dark Age – the improbably electro-poppy comeback track from MGMT, and the first to surface from their forthcoming album of that same name – may not have featured on too many, if any, end-of-year rundowns; but so far as 2017 is/ was concerned, their return certainly ranked right up there among its more, if not its most previously inconceivable renaissance.
For some, the song may have rankled, recalling as it did so much of the now-widely lambasted Ed Banger catalogue, but to me, it enraptured in a way I no longer considered Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser capable. And the second to come from that aforementioned full-length, entitled When You Die, is comparably pleasing: lyrically, it’s purposefully unpleasant stuff (VanWyngarden’s demonstrable through-line, “I’m mean, not nice” cut with lyrics concerning the alacrity with which he’s “ready, ready, ready” to blow his [lid off / brains out]) yet musically, as Japanese Boyish synths combine with many an element reminiscent of The Sleepy Jackson’s seminal Lovers, it makes for another supremely euphonious cut. This is perhaps to be expected – at least to an extent – what with Little Dark Age having been produced in cahoots with both Patrick Wimberly and Dave Fridmann, but if MGMT are this “ready, ready, ready” and willing, willing, willing to make the eminently morbid sound quite so enlivening, then there’s seemingly plenty of life left in the pair yet…
MGMT play the Electric Brixton on February 6th.