Tame Impala returns with deep, dark disco for introverts

If you are up for some meditative, deliberate dance music look no further. I prophesize that The Slow Rush is on a quick path of becoming a silent disco staple of your dreams.

Tame Impala dove into his particular brand of introspective dance tunes, and it took him five years to come up. Perfectionism means you are never happy. Illustration: M. Sojtaric

It's been a long time since Kevin Parker has released any new material as Tame Impala, the mood struck psychedelic loner. Five years have passed since the massive hit album Currents, which has led to Parker galavanting with the likes of Lady Gaga, Ye himself and Travis Scott among others, as a collaborating producer and a breath of fresh air.

And it is in the inclusive nature of hip-hop that Parker found a new flavor for his solo groove.

Tame Impala has of course always been rich in references, twirling and bathing in trancelike groove repetitions like a dervish.

But The Slow Rush, throughout all the nerdiness and painstaking execution, has more of overt hip-hop sensitivity in the build-up of compositions than Parker's previous efforts. It caused me to quite involuntary start dancing at the bus stop.

It started as a slowly repeated shrug at the funky beat at the beginning of The Last Yesterday, one shoulder at the time. Halfway in, the shrug pretty much accelerated to full spin and bob action, mid sidewalk. Luckily, it being an unholy early hour before work, the face was saved. ( No, we don't do much silent disco events at bus stops in Northern Norway.)

The rest of my commute did not fare much better. The Slow Rush is primarily a very funky album indeed. You can write a dictionary of established, and obscure, genre references: jazz, house, dub, straight-up funk: You name it, and you probably will not be wrong. Tame Impala is a cornucopia, a surplus of creative impulses and influences flowing through the melodious canyon of the Australian's imagination.

On top of it all, a featherweight delivery of profound though occasionally banal, lyrics. Kevin Parker is not afraid of falsetto, lightness, and softness.

Another great thing: Parker fucks with the format that Spotify made, and that makes me happy. He is a producer, he knows that algorithms in the age of streaming heavily encourage premature hooks and short songs. However, Parker has produced and created a record filled with sprawling songs that exceed the gilded 3-minute mark of our collectively limited attention span.

Many of the songs are slowish-burners, songs that don't catch your groove until well into their first minute. Others expand, such as Breethe Deeper a six-minute repetition on a theme that draws you into a vortex, and makes you embarrass yourself mouthing the lyrics in the aisle of the overcrowded bus.

The Slow Rush album cover is full of bright destruction. Time turning all to dust comes to mind.

The record cover may be bright, but the subject at hand often isn't. Time is the thematic nexus of the record, its merciless and redeeming effects. The Posthumous forgiveness is heartbreaking, but too late, reckoning with a father who obviously quite spectacularly failed at his job as a hero. The song breaks in a most peculiar fashion, with the last half monotonously, lightly recounting regrets of not making amends, not making a stand. It is quite a strong self-reflection, and lyrically probably the most successful one.

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wanna tell you 'bout the time I was in Abbey Road Or the or the time that I had Mick Jagger on the phone I thought of you when we spoke Wanna tell you 'bout the time Wanna tell you 'bout my life Wanna play you all my songs Hear your voice sing along

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