MGMT

Review: First up, a confession that will instantly make me sound very uncool and/or old. I don’t much care for MGMT’s new album, Congratulations, unlike our esteemed music editor who gave it the full five stars. I’ve given it a good go. I’m even listening to it now as I tap away but, nope: no sale, sir! 
 
Judging by the crowd at their sole Sydney gig at the Metro, I am not alone. Their new material went down like a nun with braces. While their bizarre noodling may just about have stifled the sound of tumbleweed rolling around the room, it didn’t manage to drown the din of people talking. And mostly what they were saying was: “This isn’t terribly good, is it?” Or, “I want some of what they’re on.”
 
The band forewarned us that the new album would have “no hits, no singles”. And they’re absolutely right there. This is a violently tangential departure from the overplayed, mass commercial sound of ‘Kids’, ‘Time to Pretend’ and ‘Electric Feel’ on Oracular Spectacular. Congratulations is patently not the follow-up their massed ranks of fans – or their record label – might have wished for. But that just makes it all the more cool, obviously.
 
Their Metro performance was as markedly schizophrenic as it was psychedelic – oscillating between the socially awkward, introspective personality of their new sound and the party poppers they once were but clearly now loathe. You get the feeling that they were as offended by the whooping and hollering that greeted the big singles as they were by the murmuring indifference that stonewalled the latest material.
 
Indeed, when they returned to play 'Kids' as the encore, it was performed with a sigh. Instead of actually playing the song, Ben Goldwasser simply pressed autopilot and he and frontman Andrew VanWyngarden sang tiredly over a backing track while the rest of the house band broke up the set around them. Was there a none-too-subtle message here? Like: we’re really, really, really sick of playing this.
 
By the way, Goldwasser: man, what a look! I loved it. He is easily the nerdiest-looking rock star I’ve ever seen. Wearing an off-white suit and science lab glasses, he looked like he’d just delivered a chemistry lecture. Right up his nose.
 
Maybe MGMT’s creative new direction will prove to be their ticket to the critical acclaim they crave. But the fans, of which I was one, won’t buy it. Dan Rookwood