The Slow Rush/ Tame Impala, psychedelic pop
Album: The Slow Rush
Artiste: Tame Impala
Genre: Psychedelic pop/ electronica
Label: Universal Australia
Rating: ****
Australian multi-instrumentalist Kevin Parker, who goes by the name Tame Impala, is known for his abstract blending of genres and innovative creation of layered sounds. While his earlier work angled towards the progressive rock space, he moved on to more electronica-tinged dancehall material with strong doses of psychedelia.
The fourth Tame Impala album The Slow Rush comes five years after his successful Currents, which had drawn him to a wider audience. The path here is similar though the sounds are edgier and the synths sound snazzier. He occasionally uses a falsetto, somewhat reminiscent of the late 1970s and early 1980s funk and disco eras.
Though Tame Impala blends pop, rock, funk, electronica, psychedelia and dance music effortlessly, the songs on the album are essentially pop in nature. There’s a recurrent theme involving time on a few tracks like the opener ‘One More Year’ (check the riveting distortion in the intro and the resemblance to U2's 'One'), ‘It Might Be Time’, ‘Lost In Yesterday’, ‘Tomorrow's Dust’ and the closing number ‘One More Hour’.
The picks of the lot include ‘Borderline’, with its sing-along tune and lines like “We're on the borderline, caught between the tides of pain and rapture”. On ‘Posthumous Forgiveness’, Tame Impala attempts to come to terms with his late father, singing “Do you think I'd never know, never wise-up as I grow”.
‘On Track’ has a wonderful pop melody, and words that talk of surviving an ordeal, as he sings, “But strictly speaking I’m still on track, Strictly speaking I'm holding on”. In terms of arrangements, ‘Is It True?’ is an absolute gem, with its synthesisers and magnificent coda.
The album is ideal for both the dance floor or while driving, though one wonders why Tame Impala concludes some songs so suddenly, leaving a sense of incompleteness. The production, done by the musician himself, is first-rate, and some of those catch vocal lines linger on. Some tracks take a while to grow, but the slow rush is worth the wait.
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