MGMT at Heaven, review

By Andrew Perry 606PM GMT twenty-two March 2010

Still usually in their mid-twenties, the twin from Brooklyn have fast come to be regarded as good white hopes for their generation. Their entrance album, Oracular Spectacular, was voted the most appropriate of the year by NME, whilst their large word-of-mouth strike Kids, with the inanely informed synthesizer melody, was even used in an online debate by President Sarkozy, but accede all argumentative grist to their mill.

After eighteen months" absence, MGMT staged their keenly expected quip in a cosy venue that has, in the past, hosted likewise defining gigs by the Strokes, Franz Ferdinand and New Order. Outside, the sheet touts were bustling this was a prohibited ticket, indeed.

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The band"s approaching second album, Congratulations, is a laudably unsure proposition, trade synth-pop tunes for a some-more grown-up psychedelic-rock sound. The unknown songs didn"t go down well with the immature crowd. There was gibberish and most wake up involving mobile phones.

Many of the new songs removed the lazy-hazy psychedelia of Pink Floyd"s initial mastermind, Syd Barrett. Tracks such as I Found a Whistle and Someone"s Missing were slow, unreal and indeed sublime. Fronting a five-piece line-up, their singer, Andrew VanWyngarden, exuded the cold poise of a stone star in waiting. He sported an overcoat, and never appeared to mangle sweat. To the left, his bespectacled partner, Ben Goldwasser, tinkered anonymously at the back of a bank of keyboards.

The show began to take on an air of fight when VanWyngarden led the assign in to Siberian Breaks, a 12-minute apartment that is the centrepiece of Congratulations. During the noble changes of tempo, there were little ripples of acclaim not for the strain but expressing, instead, goal for a informed tune.

This eventually arrived in the encore, not with Kids, but a soaringly anthemic Time to Pretend, the tootling set of keys riff gleefully echoing via the audience. It was followed by the new album"s pretension track, a rather green thoughtfulness on MGMT"s fast climb to fame.

This showed some-more worldly songcraft, audaciously structured and easily played. Post-release, it will presumably be some-more enthusiastically received. Here, rather infuriatingly, it fell on deaf ears.