MGMT have announced their fifth album and first in six years, Loss of Life, due February 23 via Mom+Pop (pre-order), which marks their first album since leaving Columbia. The album was made with past collaborators Patrick Wimberly who co-produced it with the band and Dave Fridmann who mixed, and it also features additional production Oneohtrix Point Never, Danger Mouse, and live MGMT member James Richardson, with longtime MGMT affiliate Miles A. Robinson as associate producer and engineer. The album also has the first-ever guest feature on an MGMT album, from Christine and the Queens.
“We are very proud of this album and the fact that it was a relatively painless birth after a lengthy gestation period, and are happy to be releasing this baby into the world with Mom+Pop,” the band says.
The first single is “Mother Nature,” a light, breezy, psych-folk-pop song that the band says “outlines the archetypical MGMT mythology of one hero attempting to get the other hero to come on the journey that they ‘must’ go on. One part sounds like Oasis.” It’s a lovely song, and it comes with an an animated video by longtime collaborator Jordan Fish that tells the story of two animal friends. Check it out below.
Tom Scharpling penned an essay about the album, which reads in part: “Simply put, the guys did it again! They’re now five-for-five, which last time I checked gets you into virtually any Hall of Fame. This record projects an aura of undeniable warmth throughout, an album brimming with comfortable confidence. There are epic tracks and intimate portraits, a little bit of glam here, some psych-folk there. It’s a slice of magic that fits perfectly into the MGMT oeuvre while expanding the boundaries once again.”
MGMT also talk about “Little Dark Age” generating a TikTok craze, leaving their major label, working with Christine and the Queens, playing Oracular Spectacular in full at Just Like Heaven, and more in a new Rolling Stone feature.
Tracklist
1. Loss Of Life (part 2)
2. Mother Nature
3. Dancing In Babylon (featuring Christine and the Queens)
4. People In The Streets
5. Bubblegum Dog
6. Nothing To Declare
7. Nothing Changes
8. Phradie’s Song
9. I Wish I Was Joking
10. Loss Of Life