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Loss of Life

Loss of Life is the fifth studio album by the American rock band MGMT. It was released on February 23, 2024, making it their label debut on Mom + Pop in the United States, Dirty Hit in the United Kingdom, and internationally on BMG Rights Management, and their first studio album in six years since 2018's Little Dark Age. It features a guest appearance by French singer Christine and the Queens, making it the first feature on an MGMT album.

Background

On September 21, 2023, Andrew VanWyngarden posted a picture of a vinyl "test pressing" with a banana on top on Reddit, accompanied by the caption "elf of soils". The latter was reported to be an anagram of what would be the album title. The title was first hinted at on April 5 through a photo captioned "Just got done cooking L.O.L." by VanWyngarden.

Loss of Life is the long-awaited follow-up to 2018's Little Dark Age. The album was produced by MGMT (Andrew VanWyngarden, Ben Goldwasser) along with Patrick Wimberly. Longtime collaborator Dave Fridmann mixed the album as he has done on the group's past four full lengths. On Loss of Life, additional production was supplied by Daniel Lopatin and James Richardson. Brian Burton provides additional production on “Mother Nature” and Miles A. Robinson served as associate producer and engineer across the album.

In a statement, the duo revealed that they were "very proud" of the album and described it as a "relatively painless birth after a lengthy gestation period". Musically speaking, they explained to have run at around "20% adult contemporary" but "no more than this". Announced on October 31, Loss of Life was their first studio offering in six years and their first since leaving Columbia Records. The lead single "Mother Nature" was released the same day and tells the story of "one hero attempting to get the other hero to come on the journey" that they have to carry on.

MGMT has previously released videos for album tracks "Mother Nature", "Bubblegum Dog", "Nothing to Declare", "Dancing in Babylon." and "People in the Streets".

Critical reception

Loss of Life received positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 80 based on 19 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

Fred Thomas from AllMusic stated, "Loss of Life is restrained for MGMT's track record, still managing to express personality and abstract thinking (musical and lyrical) while keeping huge melodies in the forefront. It's not a return to form, a return to pop, or really a return of any kind, just a continuation of the band's blissfully weird frames of mind and a record that includes some of their strongest songs in years.

In a 6.9/10 review for Pitchfork, Andy Cush wrote, "Resurrecting old schlock in queasy new definition is not a novel pursuit in 2024. Loss of Life distinguishes itself through its use of this soft-rock accelerationist aesthetic to bolster the thematic punch of Goldwasser and VanWyngarden’s songs, which come across as equally awed and aghast at our era’s technological splendor and the crushing dehumanization it inflicts upon all but the most fortunate. Their palette of references serves a dual function: The arrangements’ gaudy spectacle reflects the feeling of life in a wonderland of convenience, entertainment, and alienation, even as their palpable sense of yearning earnestly suggests the possibility that love could help us to transcend this well-appointed hell we’ve made. At its best, this unification of sounds and ideas also serves to heighten the experience of these songs as songs, not only on the intellectual plane, but also in that more mysterious place, closer to our hearts, where we take stock of pop music’s innumerable variables, then subject their product, through a chain of involuntary and intuitive reactions, to one more-or-less binary judgment: Is it hitting or not?"

Track listing

Personnel

MGMT

Ben Goldwasser – vocals, bass, harmonica, keyboards, production, engineering (all tracks); guitars (tracks 1–6, 8–10)
Andrew VanWyngarden – vocals, bass, drums, guitars, harmonica, keyboards, production

Additional musicians

Christine and the Queens – vocals (track 3)
Nels Cline – guitars (track 2)
Rolph Harris – horns (tracks 7, 10)
Timothy Kieper – percussion (tracks 4, 6, 8)
Sean Lennon – keyboards (track 5)
Danny Meyer – clarinet (track 10)
Britta Phillips – vocals (track 8)
James Richardson – guitars (tracks 1, 5); electronic wind instrument, keyboards (1); French horn (7), clavinet (8)

Technical