Tame Impala — The Slow Rush — Album Review
Electronic | Indie | Pop
Listen on Spotify | Listen on Apple Music
Out of all of the album to have been set a release date in 2020, Tame Impala’s The Slow Rush was definitely amongst my most anticipated.
After almost a year of very irregular teasing, the full album is finally here. And while I had recognised the band for hits like “The Less I Know The Better”, “Elephant” and “Solitude Is Bliss” beforehand, the experimental indie group’s fourth studio album will be the first that I fully delve into critically.
Some might say that the teasing for this album began with the now stand-alone single “Patience” which was released roughly a year or so ago. I saw this as a very solid track. But for whatever reason, this became the only track released by Tame Impala from the start of 2019, to not make an appearance in The Slow Rush.
While my enjoyment for “Patience” was very apparent, it was the following single “Borderline” which had me truly excited for the albums release. The almost bouncing pace, along with its quirky choice of instrumebtation had me instantly hooked. Not only did this track have a slot on the finished piece, but the band also saw fit to revamp the sound slightly, which I’m guessing was a way for it to better blend into the rest of the album. I still fail to see why they couldn’t have done this with “Patience” as well, but the exclusion of that track honestly isn’t a make-or-break kind of ordeal.
In the later hals of 2019, listeners finally had a more regular flow of teaser tracks, which I think properly heralded the short amount of time fans would have to wait before the albums arrival. “It Might Be Time”, “Posthumous Forgiveness” and “Lost In Yesterday” gave a much more obvious taste of what this albums overall atmosphere and mood was to be expected.
This was validated when The Slow Rush was released in its entirety, and what we essentially got was an album from Tame Impala, which perhaps serves as the band comfortably settling into a signature aesthetic which they might continue to utilise in future projects. This is of course only a theory, but I feel that after the innovation of their prior album, 2015’s Currents, this new album feels a bit more like Tame Impala just being a more traditional, and less boundary-pushing rendition of themselves.
As a result, the accessible indie-pop sound of this album has not been quite as unique as Currents. However, I still felt that this accessibility did not detract from the enjoyment of The Slow Rush in the slightest.
What is most important with this album, in my mind, is just how much of a feel-good project this is. The sound of The Slow Rush is so consistently warm and glamorous, that I genuinely cannot wait to binge this project when the Summer heat finally arrives.
I think that purely and simply, The Slow Rush was made to just be a highly enjoyable project musically, or at leasts that’s what I’ve gone ahead and taken from the album. While I did also appreciate the underlying theme of the struggles of coming of age, this felt like an album with a general sound so hypnotic, that it’d be hard to pay much attention to anything else.
Favourite Tracks: Borderline | Posthumous Forgiveness | It Might Be Time
Least Favourite Track: Glimmer
Modular Recordings / Island Records Australia
