Congratulations?

Psych-pop-rock luminaries MGMT have finally released Congratulations, the follow-up album to their massive 2007 success Oracular Spectacular, available as a free steam here.

The first thing that stands out for me about this album is...

Well, to be honest, I don't think anything stands out. Certainly not in the way that most of the songs on Oracular Spectacular did. Gone are the catchy synth lines and vocals melodies that we saw from radio hits 'Time to Pretend' and 'Kids'. Gone is the energy that made the more psych-rock tracks like 'Weekend Wars' and 'Pieces of What' immediately ear-grabbing. Instead, the album meanders at a steady pace with a succession of decent, but unspectacular, 60's sounding psych-rock numbers.

I guess it could be argued that Congratulations does flow better as an album than it's predecessor, which is something the Brooklyn duo set out to achieve. But, if their aim was to get people to "hear the whole album as an album", then I think they've failed miserably. I've tried to listen to it for a sustained period and I can't do it. It's just too boring.

Where Congratulations does succeed is being an album true to MGMT's current mindset. Not many bands go from obscurity to super-stardom the way they did, and they've mentioned in many interviews how uncomfortable they were with their new-found fame. They should be applauded for being brave enough to make such a huge change in their music, but that doesn't change the fact that the bulk of their audience is going to dismiss this album as a flop.