One of the first large releases of the new year, MGMT's "Little Dark Age" is their most psychedelic synthpop excursion yet. Infusing elements of melodic and playful neo-psychedelia, "Little Dark Age" furthermore moves up and down in how esoteric it is.
One of MGMT'S main strengths has always been melding psychedelic landscapes with hooky pop melodies and motifs. On "Little Dark Age", MGMT manage to do this better than ever before. The overload of synths and other sounds only serve to increase the psychedelic and surreal landscape, to the point where it seems MGMT is trying to confuse you between two different genres.
The lyrics are both grave and humorous, serving mostly as a good backdrop to heighten the music even more. This, in effect, reinforces the radio-friendly yet surreal aspect of the music.
Thus, MGMT have managed to pull themselves out of an approximately 8-10 year slump (depending on who you ask), and show they're still bastions of modern psychedelia.
They seem to not have done this without some new inspiration, mainly from the recent hypnagogic pop outcrop of popularity stemming from the 2000's. They primarily draw inspiration from artists like Ariel Pink, Mild High Club, and John Maus on their more playful songs, channeling a warm 80's vibe as a result.
"Little Dark Age" doesn't only channel cheap 80's MIDI's but also the beginnings of 60's psych, just like bands such as Tame Impala are successfully reenacting at the moment. More so, MGMT seems to be tentatively bridging the gap between synth/psychedelic pop and vaporwave more than most artists are currently attempting.
Though many claim that there are no standout tracks, I tend to disagree. I believe that just because there are no huge radio-friendly hits like "Kids" or "Electric Feel" off "Oracular Spectacular", doesn't mean that there are no hits on "Little Dark Age". On the contrary, I think that almost any song on the album could be considered a standout, depending on what the listener is tuned in for and likes. This makes sense, as there are so many different genres at work across all songs.
Thus, a mixture of vaporwave, hypnagogic pop, and psychedelic pop are seamlessly combined into a synthpop dominant masterpiece of an album. The production, of course, is as seamless as ever, as MGMT shows that they're very serious about this new output.
Though many were saying that MGMT were dead, "Little Dark Age" proves them very wrong with possibly MGMT's most solid and cohesive release yet. Though it may not be as entirely pop focused and thus as popular as previous albums like "Oracular Spectacular", "Little Dark Age" melds the esoteric with radio frendly pop better than any MGMT album before it.
