MGMT is one of the most indiest bands you’ll ever listen to. They released 3 brilliant albums that sound almost like they’re one album, but in a good way.
It’s not the weird lame “All songs are one song”, they’re the good “Oh I want more of that type”. They’re really nice, chill and really original with their melodies and harmonies and even effects. Effects/synth lines are not the normal ones you get to hear in almost everywhere, effects they use are really nice and got their own taste like.
MGMT, is their third 3rd, self-titled album, TADA. They really did a great job keeping the vocals, sounds, melodies, effects and all that; let’s say almost the same, In the same good way explained earlier. The album has a video clip for the song ‘Your Life Is a Lie’, which you’ll find below.
First song is ‘Alien Days’, and it sounds so much like it’s something you heard before on their earlier albums, but then you hear this weird/amazing vocal line, effects/synth on the background kick in, 3 vocal lines kick in and the song just commences being the perfect song for this kickarse album. It-is-BRILLIANT! The base line is really sound, and you can hear it almost as high, if not higher, than the guitars, also you can tell that it’s not a digital base line, which sounds really lush. The song just keeps shifting on and on from major to minor, AKA sad to happy, a lot and it’s really sound.
‘Cool Song No.2’, hmmm, is actually the song’s name, HEY! ‘Cool song No.2’ is actually a cool song. The song has this scary feel to it with only percussions and some weird piano mashing, and I mean mashing, on low notes. They just managed to keep the song grand with all these stuff on it. The song then, suddenly goes in a scarier mood, and then guess what, a scarier mood with background noises like of which you’ve never seen; well actually you’ve seen before but I only liked the sound of the sentence so I said it. They used vocals and background noises like these ones here on their song ‘Lady Dada’s Nightmare’. The song is not long, it just ends suddenly, or so you would feel.
‘Mystery Disease’ is their 3rd track on this deadly album. Sadly it sounds cliché in a way; chords, bass lines and such, are just over used, it sounds very familiar, in a bad way; though they were original on their background layers of sounds, the song wasn’t that good, and it also maintains the same rhythm so it wasn’t something special. Actually it has something special, and I mean really special… at the last 30 seconds like, other than that, no thanks.
‘Introspection’ is the 4th track and it has very unique sounds and effects/synth. They just never fail to surprise with the electronics on their albums. The song has a solo past half way in and it sounds a little traditional it does. I don’t know why, but it sounds like that, like there’s a flag somewhere and someone is doing something to it, a good something.
‘Your Life is a Lie’ is the album’s video clip, and it’s like a comic, very happy/hyper sad pessimist song. Don’t ask me how, listen to it, it’s weird. It somehow revolves about the lyrics. Music just keeps the same through out the whole song. It has, LITERALLY, nothing special.
‘A Good Sadness’ is the 6th track, it should have been the 5th song’s name, but they just did this. The song starts after 40 seconds in; they probably didn’t notice they had the red button clicked. Again, they never fail to amaze me with the effects and synth work, it’s really nice. The song though is boring, it just stays on the same rhythm and tempo and it doesn’t sound good, sadly. It has another somewhat empty part at the end. Someone needs to notice that red button.
‘Astro-Mancy’ and ‘I love You Too, Death’ are really weird. There’s nothing to actually explain or tell. It’s kind of like “If a tree falls in the woods what’s the sound it’s going to make?” I bet these 2 songs are that question’s answer. The songs are just a bunch of effects mashed with a faded, very far away, tunnel effect layered vocal line that you have to be high to notice it was there, and no, I wasn’t high.
‘Plenty of Girls in the Sea’ is the link between these past 2 “Experiences”, cause they were experiences not songs, and the next “Thank God it’s an ordinary” type of song. ‘Plenty of Girls in the Sea’ is a good song which has – as said earlier – a mixture of a normal song and an electronic, effects/synth-full track. The track has a very beautiful part half way in where it sounds really different as if it’s a different song, then it comes back to the original lines and style it started, which I think is a really good, original as usual, song.
‘An Orphan of Fortune’ is the album’s finale. The song is a chill, “What a way to end the album!” kind of song. It’s a mid-tepmo’d track with an ordinary drum line and a really nice synth on the background line which is just as dreamy as it gets. The track somehow crescendos, half way, into a really synth-full, yet calm and warm track. The track then just suddenly chills out, and again, it has the same weird ending on almost 4-5 songs on the album.
Overall the album is an “Indie, MGMT” album, so if you’re expecting something to drive/study to, then I reckon you ring your mechanic/professor cause you’re going to sleep half way in, and end up in real trouble. It’s a very mellow, chill, beautiful and warm album, and I mean really feels warm. The album is a big huge like.
Edited by: NJ Bakr
