PASTEMAGAZINE.COM, APRIL 13, 2010
By Austin L. Ray

Wipe Out

Congratulations, MGMT, you have made a truly ridiculous record! (They had to live up to that album cover somehow, right?) Reader, you know how groups like The Flaming Lips and Of Montreal—truly great bands with genuine, experimental talent—can, when left to their own devices, go a bit too far? MGMT is like some nightmarish amalgam of those bands’ bottom-barrel ideas set to wanky synths, sometimes for up to 12 minutes (!!!) at a time. The interminable mess in question, “Siberian Breaks,” is a nadir that band member Andrew VanWyngarden (even his name is excessive) told Spin is about “surfing in the Arctic Circle.” That’s what these guys write about: surfing in the Arctic Circle. The very next track is titled “Brian Eno.” Pro-tip, dudes: His Holiness Eno’s name is off limits, especially when you write a song that evokes it in a way that is, at best, an embarrassing novelty. Who could possibly take this album seriously?