Most millennials, upon hearing MGMT’s breakthrough single Time To Pretend play over a salacious summer montage in Saltburn, will have felt a pang. Aaah, the “move to Paris, shoot some heroin and f*** with the stars” guys. How’s that going for them? Like the other artists presented in aspic by Saltburn’s director Emerald Fennell, most hung up their American apparel lamé tights and headbands long ago. Yet, in the years since their 2008 debut album went supernova, MGMT — aka Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser — have been restlessly creative, forging nuanced worlds with each passing album. Their last effort, 2018’s witchy Little Dark Age, was a dark star that brought them back to within a finger’s breadth of re-entering pop’s orbit, so it stands to reason that Loss Of Life should seek to derail said realignment, and once again be the curveball allergic reaction to critical acclaim. Not quite. Despite the name, Loss Of Life is an uplifting record: the nightmares of yore traded for lullabies. Nothing Changes is a gauzy slow jam which culminates in a gorgeous Herb Alpert-esque horn fantasia, while the title track’s prickly Fisher-Price melody recalls legendary New York oddballs Silver Apples. It’s hard not to admire a band that wrote a song like Time To Pretend and yet steadfastly refused all opportunity for pretence — even when it cost them their own success — simply so they could make the music they want.