Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 10/03/08
Label: Sony BMG

It's the dream start for a new band. Yahoo! Music has lost count of the number of people asking: "Have you heard that MGMT single?" That single being "Time to Pretend", the Brooklyn duo's debut and a strong contender for 'Single Of The Year' thus far. Suffice to say, it's a remarkable opening gambit; instantly recognisable and arcing ever skywards on lift-off chords and an unforgettable screwy lead line. It leaps out of the morning radio like some impish electro hippy, splashes about in your cornflakes and sends you skipping out the front door like we've already hit summer.

You'd be right to expect even more great things then from the album proper and a cursory glance at the tracklist reveals ambitious, galaxy gazing titles like "4th Dimensional Transition" and "Of Moons, Birds and Monsters"; Clearly MGMT themselves have got their sights set slightly higher than a Hard-Fi support tour and in some respects, "Oracular Spectacular" meets their lofty promise. The overall feel of the album is that of a band making music joyfully uprooted from any temporal reference points, which is clearly welcome.

MGMT possess a unique ability to skip with ease between various chapters in rock history and the album weaves its way through shimmering psychedelia, noodly prog-rock and shiny, radio-friendly synth-pop. There's even a brief foray into '80s AOR by way of "Electric Feel", which struts and shimmies like Hall & Oates covering The Stones. Sadly, however, opener and aforementioned single "Time To Pretend" is the high-point and there really isn't much else on the album to touch it.

Despite a sound as stylistically kaleidoscopic as it is sonically, the end product is too often incoherent and meandering. The lack of focus extends to the songwriting too. Tunes like "The Handshake" and "Of Moons And Monsters" open up and develop pleasantly enough before striking a repetitive groove and inexplicably clinging to it. This would be the point at which you're preparing to be blasted into this promised 4th Dimension, but disappointingly they wimp out and too many tracks fade. MGMT clearly aren't short of ideas, they just seem to lack the discipline and judgement to distil them into coherent and rewarding songs rather than sprawling mood pieces.

Their debut also suffers from a ludicrously over bearing production job, courtesy of Flaming Lips studio whiz Dave Fridmann. His signature tricks are everywhere: overdriven cut-up drums, vintage delay effects and gratuitous panning dominate each track and whilst it works for The Lips, here it sounds tinny and jarring. It's almost like neither him nor the band could decide whether they were making an electronic or rock record and in dithering between the two settled on the awkward, frustrating middle ground this is "Oracular Spectacular".

    by Jim Brackpool