Tame Impala - "The Slow Rush" (2020)

While I more preferred Tame Impala's psych-rock sound of their first two LPs (I've grown to love Lonerism even more in particular since I reviewed it) to Currents' nu-disco and psyched up synth pop, I wasn't expecting Kevin Parker and co to return to it. I was also okay with it, as there were elements of Currents that I thought were great and the band could hone the sound further (much like the jump from Innerspeaker to Lonerism). For the most part, I feel that's what we've got, although there are some things holding the record back in my opinion.

The first two singles for the record dropped in early 2019, Patience and Borderline, before Parker delayed and reworked the album. This resulted in a new album version of Borderline and Patience being dropped entirely. I think this was a good move, as these singles had a very washed out and dream-poppy aesthetic, but felt rather limp and lifeless to me. The new version of Borderline is miles better, with the bass and drums pumped up and the whole song sped up. The squelchy bass and glistening keys give the song an infectious, dance-able groove. The first half of the record follows suit and provides a bunch of super groovy and psyched out songs indebted to not just disco but other forms of dance music as well, primarily house and Balearic beat.

One More Year opens up the record with chopped up, stuttering vocals, before the snappy beat fades in and Kevin's lead falsetto vocals glide on top. The lyrics intrigue me, dealing with the idea of time and what Kevin wants to achieve if he only had one more year. Perhaps it's relating to the band, and Parker is questioning if they can keep it up. The track builds momentum until the line "One more year, from today...", where the track breaks down into this effortlessly cool outro. These themes of time and achievement, and self doubt run through the album, and Kevin has clearly grown as a lyricist since Currents. The lyrics only really served the purpose of atmosphere on the bands earlier releases, but on Current's Kevin started to stretch out and tell more detailed experiences. However the lyrics on that album sometimes had a sour and wallowing tone, which is not the case here. It really feels like Kevin is writing introspective and emotional songs with more balance and less awkward self-pity.

The best example of this is my favourite song on the record, Posthumous Forgiveness. The song details Kevin's fractious relationship with his late father, and the tone of his voice excellently conveys the pain and hurt, and also the internal confusion that Parker feels towards his dad. The heavy, distorted synth line that runs throughout the song, accumulating in a massive, crushing breakdown really sell the tension and importance of this song. This leads into the second section of the song; a much breezier part where Kevin goes on to forgive his father and wish that he was still around to see all the amazing thing he is doing with the band.

Breathe Deeper, by contrast, is a much simpler song. It's an out and out dance song with an incredibly infectious groove and hook. The sparkling keys and funky bassline play off each other so well, and Kevin sounds uncharacteristically confident and swaggering on the vocals. Following this, Tomorrow's Dust slows the pace back down. The track has a very dream pop vibe, with the strummed acoustic guitar and reverb soaked instrumentation. Kevin sings about the past and how long ago and unrelatable it feels to him now, specifically referencing the bands back catalogue with the line "There's no use trying to relate to that old song".

It's at the half way point with the song On Track where the album's problems start to show. For each song I enjoy on the back half of this record, it is punctuated with one I don't care for. This completely kills the momentum of the album. On Track is the record's only ballad, and it builds up from a skeletal first verse to the chorus, which completely flat-lines and isn't memorable in the slightest. As the song progresses more instrumentation is introduced, but everything is so soaked in reverb and fader that it doesn't feel like the track really builds up as it progresses, and leaves me with the feeling of 'that was really 5 minutes?'.

Following On Track is Lost In Yesterday, a straight up disco-pop song with a catchy as all hell chorus and some excellent lyrics about losing your self in nostalgia and only embracing the past if it's beneficial and forgetting about it if it is not. The lyric "Eventually terrible memories turn into great ones" always jumps out at me on every listen. But then the track Is It True follows it. The track isn't bad, but to me it feels like it's trying to do the same thing as Breathe Deeper with a less interesting beat and a more clunky chorus. I like the switched up beat and jazzier, more loose feel to the outro, but it is just an outro, so doesn't really save the song.

It Might Be Time opens up like some kind of reverby Supertramp song, with a very 70s sounding keyboard line and Parker's high falsetto vocals. The lyrics of the song follow on from Lost In Yesterday, dealing with Kevin's fears of the bands relevancy going forward and whether he enjoys it as much as he used to. The track builds into a wall of sound as it goes on, with massive chugging drums, crunchy guitars and this wild, siren-y, distorted synth line blaring on top. It really dramatises the themes of the track.

The final track, One More Hour has a similar pop-prog feel to it. It phases through multiple sections with different instruments and effects popping in and out. The lyrics come across brutally honest, talking about Kevin's various motivations behind the band, his need for solitude every so often, and his doubts of the band's continued success and relevancy. The track builds up in intensity to the point where some noisy, distorted guitars come into the mix. It gives the ending a very shoegaze-y, ethereal atmosphere; which is furthered by the fade out at the end of the track. It makes me feel like Kevin is ascending off into the clouds.

But sandwiched between these two tracks is the completely uneventful and unnecessary interlude, Glimmer. I honestly don't know what purpose it serves, as the album is long enough as it is; and It Might Be Time and One More Year are quite tonally similar, and do not need an interlude between them. At 57 minutes, this album on the whole feels quite bloated. The weaker tracks in the second half don't feel necessary, and there's a handful of studio snippets separating some the songs that could easily come out. Quite a few of the tracks have long, extended outros, which are fine at a track by track level, but just drag the album out when listening all the way through.

The best tracks on this album are really great (and Posthumous Forgiveness is fantastic), but it does feel Kevin got a bit carried away when putting it together. It's just simply an hour long album with 45 mins worth of ideas. I don't think ill be coming to it in full very often because of this, but 45 mins of good ideas is still quite a lot of good ideas, so it's worth checking out for the highlights alone.

Top Tracks: One More Year, Borderline, Posthumous Forgiveness, Breathe Deeper, Tomorrow's Dust, Lost In Yesterday, It Might Be Time, One More Hour

7/10

Tame Impala - "Currents" (2015)

Currents is a quite the shift from Tame Impalas previous record, Lonerism. It ditches many of the guitars for more of a psychedelic synth-pop style. This new approach makes the record feel much more sonically dense than Lonerism, which I'm not really latching on to as much (I really liked the spacious atmosphere of Lonerism). I find it slightly impenetrable, as if I can't really get absorbed by the record.

The album opens with its best cut, Let It Happen, a track driven by its thumping, dance-able bass riff. The track goes through multiple phases, one of which where the track chops up like old scratched CDs do, only to do it again and then more frequently until the track bursts out of it with the return of the bass line. The Less I Know The Better has a similar bass line, with Kevin Parker singing some pretty catchy falsetto vocals. I also get a bit of a disco vibe from this track with the strings which float around in the mix in the back half of the song.

Disciples sounds far more similar to Lonerism than anything off this record, being a more guitar driven track. It's such a shame that it is so short, as it has the spaciousness the rest of the album lacks. I feel like Nangs is the best exploration of the synth style, which is also far shorter than it could be. The track is rich in atmosphere, having this wobbling, warbling noises. I also feel it benefits from having no vocals. The vocals across the album are in this heavily processed falsetto style, which works on some tracks, including the aforementioned Let It Happen and The Less I Know The Better, as well as Reality In Motion. However they feel far less dynamic than on Lonerism, just sitting on top of the mix where they used to dart around all over the place. 

A friend also brought to my attention that the lyrics feel just a little whiny. While Tame Impala has always had somewhat sad undertones, there are points on this record which verge into self-pity. The worst offender for this is Past Life, a track which has these really cringy pitch-shifted spoken word vocals about a previous partner. The track also has this incredibly bad sounding distortion effect placed on the entire mix at points which really doesn't mix well with the rest of the tune.

Current's is an incredibly made and produced album, but almost too so. Outside of some really great tracks (I mean Let It Happen is phenomenal), it's just too dense for me to really find myself being absorbed by the music. It is still enjoyable to have on in the background and has creative moments in most of the tracks which I appreciate. I can imagine someone else with slightly different tastes digging it a lot more than I did.

Top Tracks: Let It Happen, Nangs, The Moment, The Less I Know The Better, Disciples, Reality In Motion

6/10