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Credit MGMT for refusing to rest on its major-label laurels, but directionless experimentation proves no substitute.
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What emerges from such silliness is the pleasing sense that the duo had a blast making this record. Listening to it is also fun at times, but just as often it's damned hard work.
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There are nine tracks of somewhat forgettable spacey-psych 70's songs that are packed with confusion from start to finish. It sounds as if the band skipped a few pages, assuming that their immediate debut success would carry over with the risks they took for this one.
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This airy prog-psych self-indulgence is merely an elaboration of the back half of that debut--the half I tuned out then but appreciate some now, because, even as self-indulgent elaborations go, the follow-up's a doozy.
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It's a brave, sometimes successful, but ultimately flawed attempt to evolve and grow the band's sound. The one crime is a distinct lack of any memorable tunes, but it will certainly stand as one of 2010's more interesting releases.
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Overall, MGMT's refusal to co-operate with the listener jars with the crisp and professional production – which, despite Sonic Boom's involvement, is more Van Dyke Parks than Spacemen 3 and leaves Congratulations sitting somewhere in the middle, not complex enough for the prats, but too obscure for the jerks.
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None of the songs are good enough as growers or deep tracks to hold up the album.
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None of the songs hit as hard as Kids or Electric Feel, but there's also no filler (which is more than we can say for OS). Instead, the band delivers a consistent if self-indulgent offering of oddball prog-pop.
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Congratulations will, without question, be heard, and by millions. But as what--an all-too-familiar expression of post-fame disillusionment? a fearless psych-rock masterpiece? a shape-shifting tribute, both lyrically and musically, to retro influences?--remains unclear.
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Congratulations shares nary a sonic smidgen with Oracular Spectacular, instead existing in a netherworld where mod-era psychedelia meets prog-rock and where the ecstatic heights of the band's debut don't exist.
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With Congratulations, they attempt to not just keep it weird--which they've done--but to figure out how they can be in it for the long haul. It's a solid start.
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In striving rather openly to set their sophomore effort apart from what they view as the critically acclaimed trappings of their debut, MGMT offers what is, essentially, an album of B-sides--a few bright spots strung together with half-baked concepts and monotony, in need of a lot less knob-tweaking and a whole lot more rewrites.
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MGMT have (purposely?) lost that instant magic that they effortlessly whipped up with those debut singles, and in trying to re-establish themselves as artists that don't need the commercial mainstream to survive, they've created a record that lacks any defining characteristics to call its own.
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Their mainstream audience should flee now, but Congratulations is more than mere commercial suicide. Their perversity has produced a sonic adventure, with lovely moments.
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Either way, therein lies Congratulations' biggest triumph: despite being every bit the sophomore slump MGMT damn near willed it to be, it leaves you just enough reason to stay interested in what they do next.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 214 out of 250
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Mixed: 21 out of 250
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Negative: 15 out of 250
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DavidM.Apr 14, 2010What a grower of an album. Soon it will be drilling itself into your subconscious.
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FredericL.Apr 19, 2010
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DocGonzoApr 13, 2010