With the release of their fifth album, MGMT has cemented their status as an ever-changing band that refuses to be pigeonholed. Any remnants of the bright and poppy synths and shower-concert-inspiring choruses that made up the duo’s 2007 debut “Oracular Spectacular” have now all but left, replaced with an intriguing new vocal delivery and emphasis on tone and atmosphere.
If this was band members Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser’s attempt to create an album that plays as a movie, they would have succeeded massively. If nothing else, “Loss of Life” is thoroughly committed to following its theme of existential uncertainty with a wry smile- and uses various tools to accomplish this. The album opens with a vinyl crackle, which shortly gives way to a shrill mellotron piano accompanied by an ominous reading of a centuries-old Welsh poem- a perfect encapsulation of the eerie journey through the human condition of uncertainty that is to come.
“Loss of Life” spends its time in two main camps, sometimes lamenting the unknown as well as the seemingly pointless tasks that life consists of, and other times finding rays of hope in the otherwise murky waters.
Tracks like “Nothing Changes” and “People In The Streets” make up part of the more sorrowful elements of the album, with these songs presenting as questioning ballads that feel like a last resort, hands-to-the-sky plea for any information that could help one navigate life. Lines such as “The people in the streets aren’t singing along/’Cause they’re probably sick and they’re probably tired” and “Thrust the dagger into the night, valiantly flailing/ Sisphyean daily life, but endless straining” eloquently display the lack of direction that life often has- a central theme of the album.
Even the more upbeat songs are tinged with this acknowledgment. Tracks such as “Bubblegum Dog” and “Mother Nature” contain an overall optimistic feel until the surface is scratched to reveal the struggle to remain positive in the face of an unstable and unseen future.
MGMT has returned with a much fuller sound compared to their previous pieces, and this works very well in their favor. The most surprising element of this album is its ability to stay on message and remain sonically cohesive despite each track’s non-uniformity and varying instrumentation. The deep and layered mixes give the ear a lot of territory to explore, with a wide variety of instruments and techniques that all complement each other. The album’s opening half starts with the aforementioned poem reading and then changes form a bit, with the first five songs having unique styles and instrumentation.
One such song is the animated yet hard-hitting “Bubblegum Dog.” It includes a slide whistle intro, as well as a lively romp on a harpsichord towards the end.
After this track, the album regains its main musical theme, the mysterious and ethereal synths that give the piece its sonic depth and texture. Sometimes reversed, sometimes warped in ways that barely stay in key, these synths are musically one of the most impressive elements of the album- giving the LP both its ominous beauty and its bubbly sound at times.
“Loss of Life” is the latest in a long line of inventive and expertly crafted albums from the creative duo, with the piece’s atmospheric ambiance allowing the listener to be fully enveloped by the tracks, listening intently as the different instruments and vocal effects drift by. The most surprising element of this album is its ability to stay on message and remain sonically cohesive despite the non-uniformity and varying instrumentation of each track.
