Album Review: Tame Impala - The Slow Rush (2020)

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect with The Slow Rush, the fourth Tame Impala album. I was relatively familiar with the very early Tame Impala work (2012-ish), the bulk of which was a sort of heavy psychedelic alt-pop. I liked it a lot.

But I was also aware that at some point during the near decade since I last paid any real attention, the “band” - or rather, Perth musician Kevin Parker - had made serious inroads into a much more mainstream commercial pop market. I knew this because my (then) teenage daughters had mentioned him in passing more than a few times. I struggled to reconcile their tastes with that of my own, and indeed, my own relationship with that early Tame Impala stuff.

Either they’d started using mind altering drugs, which seemed unlikely, or Parker had changed tack. I was always fairly confident it was the latter scenario, and one listen to The Slow Rush tends to confirm this. The album is light years removed from the edgy psychedelia of early Tame Impala.

Two things: Firstly, I’m carelessly writing this review without having ever listened to this album’s immediate predecessor, Currents (2015), which, as I understand it, was the album that launched Tame Impala into the wider mainstream consciousness. Secondly, some of that earlier stuff did actually hint at Parker’s love of good old fashioned commercial pop. It was just more covertly disguised.

So I picked this up blind, to discover that all masks are removed on The Slow Rush. Everything on it is finished with a very glossy sheen. It might even be called a dream pop album.

Tracks like opener, ‘One More Year’, advance single ‘Borderline’, and late album peak, ‘Lost In Yesterday’, are radio-friendly and melodic, full of hooks, and vaguely existential in theme. Without ever becoming too weighty.

Influences from the halcyon days of soft rock’s 1970s golden era are everywhere on The Slow Rush, and while I wouldn’t usually have a problem with that (yes you would - Truthful Ed), the OCD-challenging stop/start nature of mid-album cuts like ‘Posthumous Forgiveness’ and ‘Breathe Deeper’ merely trigger an unjust sense of loathing. Each plays out like a series of plush half formed ideas. Probably just me.

The closing track, ‘One More Hour’, brings us full circle to the similarly titled opener, and its swirling synths do veer close to the grandiose psychedelic stuff of yester-year, but only in a far more disposal lightweight context.

I’m sure The Slow Rush will sell, and is selling, by the truckload. It’s not a bad album by any means, just not great, and maybe even a bit, meh. Dream pop? ... yeah, nah ... let’s file this one away under “yacht rock for millennials” ... and I do mean that in the kindest possible way, honest.