Congratulations, MGMT's follow-up to the band's breakthrough 2007 Oracular Spectacular, arrives amid a flurry of bad buzz. Early whispers suggested the record was a letdown, and the band themselves tempered expectations, saying the record would disappoint fans hoping for another "Kids." The record's garish, computer-art cover attracted ridicule from all corners of the Internet, as did the record's manic first single, "Flash Delirium," which was the aural equivalent of that cover, an ADD-riddled surf-pop tune filtered through a digital arcade.
Following the inevitable leak of the album, the band is now streaming Congratulations on its Web site. The album certainly seems to have benefited from the campaign to kill expectations: It's not nearly the disaster some advance hype suggested. An homage to '60s psychedelia, Congratulations is tuneful and ambitious, many of its songs cycling through hooks as if unable to commit to just one (though that could be because most of these hooks aren't quite strong enough to anchor a song of their own). Mildly pleasant surprises abound. Opener "It's Working" draws a lovely line between '60s psych-pop and '80s dream-pop, while "I Found a Whistle" blooms into a gorgeous waltz.
The biggest problem with Congratulations, then, is the one the band themselves pointed out: There isn't another "Kids" here. For that matter, there's little of the evocative electro-pop that Oracular Spectacular did so much better than its many imitators. Instead, MGMT has re-hashed the same Beach Boys sounds that have already been recycled endlessly for the past decade. There's little here that hasn't already been done by Of Montreal, or hell, even by The Vines or Phantom Planet or Panic! at the Disco or any other band that's ever deluded themselves into thinking they were breaking new ground by aping Sgt. Pepper, Their Satanic Majesties Request and Pet Sounds.
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