Abigail Risser
Staff Writer
On Feb. 9, alternative rock band MGMT released a new album, “Little Dark Age.” The techno/80s-rock sounding album is composed of 10 songs that the band played periodically throughout the year at various shows and festivals. The earliest song released was “Little Dark Age.” Dark undertones and themes encompass the songs as a whole in catchy tunes that seem to be better developed than some of MGMT’s past work.
In particular, the song “Me and Michael” is one of the better songs on the album. It holds LGBT undertones with the descriptions of the narrator and Michael, as well as discussing gender in the lines “binary star sink like the setting sun, too happy with ourselves to notice when the change had come.” Apart from that, the song has a catchy tune that is convenient to listen to while doing other school work.
A second favorite would be the song “One Thing Left to Try.” The song, at first, is very similar to some of Empire of the Sun’s work, but eventually evolves into its own song. MGMT seems to be addressing the life lesson of doing what needs to be done and saying what needs to be said before it’s too late, expressing this very well with instrumental tones that keep the listeners interest.
“TSLAMP” would have to be the worst song on “Little Dark Age.” The style of the song strays from the album theme to start with. The repetitiveness of each chorus is dry and lackluster, taking away from what could be a pretty good song. The instrumental aspect is distracting at times when MGMT is singing, making it a sort of confusing mess as well.
So far, “Little Dark Age” has received a rating of four out of five stars in the first few days of being released. This album definitely shows aspects of how the band has changed and developed since their last release in 2013. At this point, three out of four of MGMT’s most popular songs come from the album “Oracular Spectacular,” including “Electric Feel,” “Kids,” and “Time to Pretend, Your Life is a Lie” from MGMT being in the top four as well. That being said, will one of the new releases make its way to the top?