MGMT return with ‘MGMT’
By Angela Espinoza, Arts Editor
4/5
Everybody’s favourite modern psych-rock band MGMT is finally back with a brand new self-titled album. After a three-year wait since Congratulations, MGMT was released on September 17, following lead single “Your Life Is a Lie” back in August.
Opening track “Alien Days” shimmies to life with gentle, high-pitched voices before moving into MGMT’s staple weirdness. “Alien Days” is a calming, dreamy track about parasitic aliens, and get excited because it’ll also be their next video release. “Your Life Is a Lie,” “Introspection,” and—my favourite song—“Plenty of Girls in the Sea,” are some of the album’s more upbeat songs, and rightly so; they’re genuinely fun.
There are a lot of good songs on the album, but on the whole, the tracks just don’t tie particularly well together. MGMT largely feels like a random collection of MGMT songs, which is fine, but the lack of coordination is disappointing.
That said though, MGMT is a welcome addition to the MGMT discography. A special edition of the album called The “Optimizer” Deluxe Edition features a collection of original visuals, designed for zoning out to while listening to the album. It can be assumed that if you like MGMT, The “Optimizer” will be a worthy investment, if just to have a couple strange evenings with a couple strange Connecticut guys.
