MGMT: 'Congratulations'

Don't judge a book by its cover, the old adage goes, but MGMT have made that bloody difficult with their second long-player, Congratulations. The cover in question is possibly the most ridiculous packaging for a pop record in recent memory. It comes with a scratch-off sleeve and a custom-designed coin! It boasts little nuggets of wisdom for each song: "A Primal Scream for the How Generation. More DaDa than Gaga. More drinking than Thinking. Less Arty than Party," it promises for 'Lady Dada's Nightmare'. Oh yes, the songs ... as well as that gem, there's the Television Personalities tribute 'Song For Dan Treacy', another track called 'Brian Eno' and the 12-minute 'Siberian Breaks'. Taken together, it makes recent Radiohead releases look like The Who's minimalist Live At Leeds. It makes Spiritualized's famously ingenious sleeve designs seem like a CDR scrawled with a Sharpie.

Speaking of Spiritualized, Jason Pierce's ex-Spacemen 3 bandmate Peter 'Sonic Boom' Kember joins MGMT behind the mixing desk on this follow-up to 2007's Oracular Spectacular, and the band have fallen over themselves to tell anyone who'll listen how bold, single-free and uncompromising it is. With the tentative trailer 'Flash Delirium' failing to build on the catchy promise of their first three singles, it'd be fair to say that we popped this on the hi-fi with more than a touch of trepidation. However, and against all expectations, if you strip away / embrace (your choice) all the silliness, Congratulations is actually rather lovely.

First off, and despite the moist squib that was the teaser, Congratulations isn't the audacious hit-free desert the band hyped up. Sure, there's no 'Time To Pretend' / 'Kids' / 'Electric Feel' here, but this ain't exactly Metal Machine Music either. Opener 'It's Working' would sound absolutely fine on the radio, recalling a poppier My Bloody Valentine with added riffage. The vibe of 'Song For Dan Treacy' harks back to the classic US indie of Sonic Youth's 'Teenage Riot' and Pavement's 'Summer Babe' without sounding particularly like either. Meanwhile, 'I Found A Whistle' and 'Lady Dada's Nightmare' should easily find favour among Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev fans.

The lyrics to 'Brian Eno' show that it's only those who take the band overly seriously who risk being wound up by their newfound technicolour absurdity. "I can tell that he's kind of smiling / But what does he know? / We're always one step behind him/ He's Brian Eno!" they yelp in a manner similar to the glory days of the infamous producer's ex-charges Devo. Heck, even the daunting-on-paper 'Siberian Breaks' is a friendly-to-the-ears mix of Beach Boys surf-pop, Syd Barrett melancholia and fancy twiddly bits. Congratulations isn't anywhere near the career suicide some have predicted, nor the revolutionary artifact others have hyped, but something much better altogether - a gorgeously daft, highly listenable slab of 21st century dream-pop.