Album Review: Little Dark Age, MGMT

‘Time to Pretend’ duo go anti-Trump ON LATEST UPPDATE It’s been a rocky decade for Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden. Their 2007 debut yielded inescapable hits ‘Time To Pretend’ and ‘Kids’. At the risk of seeming a little ungrateful, they’ve spent the intervening years fleeing those songs and the stereotype it established of the duo as psychedelia pop bros. Such instinctive flinching hasn’t done much for MGMT, commercially or critically. There was unanimous bafflement regarding 2010 indie avalanche Congratulations and though 2013’s MGMT aimed to restore their pop standing, the world had moved on. In 2015, they announced they were taking a break. Goldwasser got engaged and moved to Los Angeles. VanWyngarden remained on the East Coast where, by his own account, he spent most of the time surfing. Suitably revived, their fourth long player is a busy affair in which they tentatively seek to reconnect with the catchy ache of their first record. With half of the material written following the election of Donald Trump, millennial unease is a theme, articulated most coherently on the title track and on anti-social media opener ’She Works Out Too Much’. But the album looks for positives too. ‘James’ is a big-hearted, disco-fuelled valentine to touring guitarist James Richardson, and ‘TSLAMP’ is trippy excursion into Tame Impala territory. Moreover, the “Little” of the title refers to the fact that Trump won’t be president forever – perhaps not even past 2020. Whether MGMT can defy expectations the way Trump did on the way to the White House and resume their pop career is uncertain – it’s possible they’re far happier in obscurity than as shoo-ins for a Hot Press front cover. But Little Dark Age is sweet and accessible – and the first time in a decade when MGMT seem to not be completely antagonistic to the concept of being pop stars. OUT FEBRUARY 9

Rating 7/10