Delanie Dickens
Photography Editor
Australian musician Kevin Parker, famously known as the producer, writer, and lead singer of the indie pop group Tame Impala, finally released his fourth studio album, The Slow Rush, on Valentine’s Day this year. The timing of Tame Impala’s album seems fitting as fans grow to love the collection more and more.
Tame Impala hit the music industry big in 2015 with his album titled Currents which included favorites like Let It Happen and The Less I Know The Better. Parker’s success left the music world hungry for more. Now, over four years later, psychedelic pop fans are finally getting a taste of 34-year-old Parker’s musical journey and growth as an artist.
The Slow Rush is a complex project for Parker. Each title brings a new range of emotions to the table. “A year of my life in a cardboard sleeve. A year of blood, sweat and tears and joy and anguish,” the musician cordially announces on his Instagram after the album’s release.The first song of the album, One More Year, is perfectly indicative of this feeling. “We got a whole year, fifty-two weeks, seven days each, four seasons, one reason,” the song gracefully chants as it sets the tone for the rest of the collection.
Progressing through the album, Parker picks up the pace with Instant Destiny and Borderline, two very energetic tracks with powerful sounds that pull the album in a more thoughtful direction. The next track on the album, Posthumous Forgiveness, is a perfect bridge connecting the energetic emotion of the first three tracks to the blissfulness of the rest of the album. The tempo change at the 4 minute mark of the song is a refreshing mood shifter for listeners and one of my personal favorite moments of the collection.
Parker’s Breathe Deeper track is a super catchy, highly pop-inspired fan favorite. I think the colors and sounds and movements of the album are captured perfectly on this track. Parker brings an enlightening, transcendental feel to the album with the track that followers listeners even further when Parker samples the same melody at the end of Tomorrow’s Dust.
The climax of the album, and my favorite of the entire record, On Track, shows Parker’s true talent as a vocalist and lyricist and solidifies Tame Impala’s growth as a musical sensation over the past decade. Parker concedes to Spotify that he wrote the track almost entirely “on my piano at home.” At the core of the song, Parker is singing about the importance of hope, perseverance, and believing in yourself, a message that connects listeners with themselves and the artist. One of the most impressive aspects of musicians like Parker is their ability to portray emotions through their sounds and words that fans can immediately empathize with. Tame Impala achieves this in an empeciable manner with this song.
While The Slow Rush is certainly the most emotional of Tame Impala’s productions, the progression of the album, nevertheless, brings the audience to higher energy with Lost in Yesterday, the hit single off the album, and Is it True.
Parker changes the mood again with It Might Be Time blaring lyrics like “suddenly all my friends are growing’ up and moving’ on” and “You ain’t as cool as you used to be, it might be time to face it.” Parker finally brings the album full circle with the two hits Glimmer and One More Hour, returning to the overall theme: a “glimmer of hope.”
While Tame Impala’s 2016 album, Currents remains the artist’s largest success, and probably the defining album that Kevin Parker will always be remembered for, The Slow Rush is notably the greatest follow-up collection Tame Impala could have possibly released. The sound is new and refreshing for fans and shows an intimate side of Parker that listeners have been waiting over a decade for. In all, The Slow Rush is probably my favorite album of the year so far and, unless a handful of legendary musicians suddenly rise from the dead, I predict it will continue to be one of my top listens by the end of 2020.
In the meantime, we should take advantage of being stuck at home in quarantine by listening to some of our favorite music and maybe even branching out to listen to something new. Take Tame Impala’s advice during this time. Stay “on track,” take a deep breath, and stay hopeful.
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