Following the success of artists like Ariel Pink and Tame Impala, the arena of odd and experimental psychedelic pop music is in relatively safe hands, but MGMT still hold a stake in its creation. There’s still something fun and interesting to be found in what the band do and Little Dark Age is proof that they’re nowhere near done with inter dimensional meddling.
Little Dark Age is a welcome return of MGMT's pop instincts, but it rarely shies away from the duo's love of adventurous psychedelia, either. It's perhaps the best indie-rock album of the year so far.
The true follow up to Congratulations, the record that is doomed to enjoy the benefit of the regret of the music writers who panned Congratulations and also to enjoy the inevitable backlash against the backlash. The record is more than good enough to earn these accolades.
Little Dark Age appears to have been a cathartic album for MGMT to make. With such strength of feeling in the lyrics, it benefits greatly from their largely positive musical approach. The tunes are back, the harmonies are still weirdly endearing, and the album hangs together really well as a whole.
This album ... comes as a wonderful surprise as the band return to the sound that brought them to prominence 11 years ago, albeit a slightly darker and mysterious one.
While it’s missing the brash stubbornness of their previous studio albums (regardless of them being entirely memorable), Little Dark Age sounds MGMT actually trying to mature as artists.
Little Dark Age finds MGMT finally rediscovering their mojo.
NY pop duo MGMT executes a fantastic return to form with the sounds of synth pop on Little Dark Age.
Album four reverts to their initial template of hyper-melodic, lyrically skewed, synth-pop ... Back on form.
Little Dark Age is audibly more rooted in mainstream mid-80s electronic pop than anything MGMT have recorded before.
Working again with Dave Fridmann and with some key assists from likeminded popster Ariel Pink and MGMT touring member James Robinson, the album feels like it’s alternately melting and lifting, warming and woozy.
MGMT always excel when they don't try too hard, and on Little Dark Age, they admirably leverage irony with lighthearted merriment.
For better or worse, Little Dark Age is an album for its time: moody, backward-looking, a little depressed.
The good news is that Little Dark Age marks a welcome shift in tactics. Much of the belabored excess of the last two albums is gone. They have traded the shaggy 1960s references and overstuffed arrangements for comparatively streamlined pop, and they have rediscovered their ability to write hooks.
Little Dark Age was met with little anticipation or excitement, but the music gives the impression that the two have transcended their concern with status or influence.
It is, in some ways, an auditory microcosm of the band's career up until this point. Its first half features some of the group's sweetest pop confections since those massive singles, while its second delves into the muggy Barrett-isms of their more recent work.
MGMT are back to their roots on Little Dark Age, with concise tunes built from cushy keyboard beats and cute, kiting melodies.
tle Dark Age, the duo’s long-gestating fourth album, casts them as graveyard goths whose madcap sense of humor barely keeps the bad vibes at bay. That it works is a testament to just how unpredictable this band has become in its experimental period.
The record is entertaining with a drastic switch to a toe-tapping twinkly 80’s-inspired synth pop and yet at the same meaningful and relevant, which is something their antecedent fans connected with on debut Oracular Spectacular.
There are some sweet moments on Little Dark Age and some stale ones. More often than not, Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser lapse back into a sardonic mode that sounded a whole lot better in 2007 than it does in 2018.
It starts really strong but as it got to the 6th track it kinda slowly lost me. I liked the second half but it is way less enjoyable than the first
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Mmm yes, one of my least favorite albums of all time for sure! I fucking hate this shit so much. 100
Wacky and interestingly written, last couple songs didnt hold my attention too much tho
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2 | Little Dark Age 4:59 | 96 |
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6 | James 3:52 | 78 |
7 | Days That Got Away 4:44 | 75 |
8 | One Thing Left to Try 4:20 | 86 |
9 | When You're Small 3:30 | 80 |
10 | Hand It Over 4:14 | 85 |
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