Finally, MGMT have given us a proper follow-up to 2018’s Little Dark Age. Six years is an awfully long wait, though they also gave us 11-11-11 in 2022 — previously unreleased music recorded during a live art exhibition on the same day that most of the rest of the world was diving into ESV: Skyrim for the first time.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t an MGMT fan when Little Dark Age released, but I discovered them in the years that followed. They’re a wildly original Indie Rock duo from Connecticut who utilize an incredible amount of electronic and synth elements. Their music is eternally offbeat from the mainstream, and that rejection is even more polarized on Loss of Life.
Allow me to underscore: this album is not for you if you crave poppy hooks.
If anything, MGMT has begun to lean into the Art/Post-Rock space just a bit here; there are sections (albeit not whole songs) on this album which might feel at home in a Sigur Ros composition. But this also leaves them in this weird middle ground, musically, as there aren’t many traditionally catchy moments, but the songs also don’t leap into the sort of ambient, atmospheric beauty that makes acts like Sigur Ros successful.
And this is where I need to pivot for a moment, because I do believe the key thematic elements and motifs play into the album’s moody atmosphere.
The album opens with “Loss of Life (part 2)”, a two-minute intro track with a number of voice-overs reading a monologue; the voice is the same, throughout, but the distortions affecting the voice change with each phrase. The monologue invokes the spectre of Taliesin, a 6th-century poet and bard whose name and feats achieved legendary status through the centuries, granting him the posthumous status as a bard in King Arthur’s court or the mein of a prophet. And it is this last feature which, I think, carries the weight here.
Taliesin reportedly wrote a diss track about Maelgwn Gwynedd, a rival of his patron, Elffin ap Gwyddno. Gwynedd died shortly after, and the tall tales which resulted, of course, imply that Taliesin foretold the hour and cause of Gwynedd’s demise.
Back to our intro track, Taliesin here expresses, for nigh on two minutes, omniscience, listing out an absurd number of things that he ‘knows’, ending with “I have been dead, I have been alive / I am Taliesin.”
From here, the album moves on through a litany of tracks, starting with “Mother Nature”, whose second verse states:
Come take a walk with mе down billionaire's row Trying to keep our balance over zero We'll write the fairytale for the rest of our lives Throwing the trash away one more time
“People in the Streets” builds on this further by stating, near the end of the song:
They're marching to the beat of a different drum Going over receipts with a magnifier The people in the streets aren't singing along 'Cause they're probably sick and they're probably tired I listen for the sound of the starting gun But when you're living the dream and your ears are bad The people in the streets aren't part of the fun And I'd go and join them, but I'm so Scared of the people in the streets
And then we get to “Bubblegum Dog”, with its puppy-like synth howls (or maybe even distorted actual puppy howls) kicking the song off. This one is, initially, a huge WTF moment. It’s out of left field, and feels strangely whimsical. The music video, even moreso.
The first time I heard it, I laughed at the absurdity. But it’s an elaborate metaphor that begins with Nietzsche: there’s a famous quote in which Nietzsche likens his pain to a dog. As for the bubblegum part, the song’s outro holds the key:
So we'll hide until it's gone Boil the ones that don't belong Pay the man to keep it on Days are short and nights are long Bang our heads against the gong Maybe tinkle on the lawn One for all and all for one My bubblegum dog
Bubblegum is bliss. Aside from being one of the best tracks on the album, the song is also an incredibly sharp commentary on the way that we, as a society, continue to ignore the problems in the world around us. I mean, we’re just getting by as best we can, but there are all of these problems, and it always feels like nobody cares.
Collectively, we don’t have a long-term future at the moment. And the emphasis is always on the short-term, either for entertainment1 or profit.
The album continues on in this vein in the second half with tracks titled “Nothing to Declare”, “Nothing Changes”, and “I Wish I Was Joking” before reaching the closing and title track, “Loss of Life”, which ends the album with an outro stating:
When thе world is born and life is ending Then you lеarn to love your loss of life (Ah) When the morning comes and life is over (Ah) Anyone can love
It’s absolutely dismal. On every level.
Which, circling back, includes the music.
Of course, that doesn’t excuse the fact that some of the songs really just feel passable at best. I’m a huge fan of Doom Metal, and I love me some depressing tones, but the quality of the music on Loss of Life doesn’t wholly support the quality of the lyricism.
Unfortunately, this is an LP, not a chapbook. Still, balancing out, the quality of the poetry and motifs is strong enough to raise my score a bit from where I had originally settled.
Rating: Green.
I spend most of my free time escaping into music or games, and I am fully aware of the irony/hypocrisy at play here.