Tame Impala - The Slow Rush

https://open.spotify.com/album/31qVWUdRrlb8thMvts0yYL?si=7mM2eqauRG-J9_22lpt7Jg

I know little-to-nothing about this band beyond "they exist" but the first two songs on this are pretty nice

I'm halfway through this hourlong album and it's so airless and streamlined that I feel like I'm still waiting for the intro to end and the album to start. Parker's style is firmly Not My Thing at this point I guess

from a previous thread, with an inaccurate thread title lol

tame impala - 2019 album

it's coming. new song is out, todd rundgren-goes-disco vibes. not loving the chorus, but i am loving that cymbal sound

― Neus Anneus (voodoo chili), Thursday, March 21, 2019 11:23 PM (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Oh really liking this! Not at all the kind of sound I was expecting from him but wouldn’t mind at all if the full album has these sort of disco soul percussions throughout instead of a rock one.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, March 22, 2019 12:28 AM (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

hum... I find it pretty dull after one play...
I'll give it another try but I doubt it will grow on me.

― AlXTC from Paris, Friday, March 22, 2019 9:11 AM (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I feel like he has really good ideas and is a good producer, but the songwriting seems so lacking. Just like most of Currents, I love the sound of this but not the melody itself.

― kitchen person, Friday, March 22, 2019 9:19 AM (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

That description… I'm probably going to like this even less than their last one. I prefer their 60s pastiches, by far.

― pomenitul, Friday, March 22, 2019 9:20 AM (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah the songwriting/melodies are weak af !
(agreed about Currents too which I didn't like at all)

― AlXTC from Paris, Friday, March 22, 2019 9:24 AM (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Kevin Parker a good producer? Ha. The most disappointing thing about the first two Tame Impala albums is that while Parker liked to allude to the 1960s in the music and his vocals, he lacked the skill of the producers on those classics 1960s albums. There is little dynamic range and these albums sound claustrophobic, muffled.

― Melomane, Friday, March 22, 2019 12:51 PM (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I’m not sure I will get ahold Tame Impala IV. I was disappointed by "Currents" where Parker became much more a generic contemporary electronic act. I remember reading an interview with him when "Currents" was released where he complained that he had never heard Tame Impala played in a club, so he wanted to make an album that could be played in clubs. Do most listeners of the first two albums really care about clubs? I think Kevin Parker got sucked into a celebrity culture where clubs are a big thing, and that had an effect on his output.

― Melomane, Friday, March 22, 2019 12:54 PM (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ok I gave it another try and it’s just 5min of... nothing !
There’s no song and no musical hooks...
Once it’s over I don’t remember anything (except maybe the arpeggiated synth... that reminds me of AC’s « my girls » !)

― AlXTC from Paris, Friday, March 22, 2019 1:17 PM (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is even crummier than I expected. Hard pass on their next LP.

― pomenitul, Friday, March 22, 2019 1:29 PM (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Do most listeners of the first two albums really care about clubs?
This. I really like the first 2 albums, but at no point have I ever been listening to them and thought "this is good and all, but what I really wonder is what his take on soft roller-rink disco might sound like?"

― One Eye Open, Friday, March 22, 2019 1:51 PM (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

one month passes...
I love Patience and it’s the first Tame Impala song I’ve felt this way about so \o/

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Tuesday, May 21, 2019 7:33 PM (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I like Borderline

― nashwan, Wednesday, May 22, 2019 2:56 AM (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean I haven’t been to keen on this band but psychedelic beegees by way of chemical brothers festival music is exactly what I need this year to get ready for summer.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, May 23, 2019 8:39 AM (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

^this is exactly how i feel. enjoying the two new tracks a lot right now

― mizzell, Thursday, May 23, 2019 9:23 AM (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

The camera work is more impressive than the song but still

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utCjuKDXQsE

Their first two albums were pretty good. Currents was heinously awful, though, so if this one is anything like it, I think I'll pass.

this band getting an 8.0 on Pfork is like a normal band getting a 3.6.

6 songs in, this is what I wanted Air to be like (relatedly, Talkie Walkie is the only Air album I like)

xport - I thought you might be exaggerating there, but I didn't realize an 8.5 was the lowest score for any of their other albums.

Reviews suggest that this takes the dance-pop style of Currents even further and there are few remaining nods to the psychedelic rock with which Tame Impala began his career (and which drew me). I guess my own Tame Impala collection is doomed to never expand beyond Innerspeaker and Lonerism.

More like Lame Impala amirite?

this sounded extra limp/flat by comparison when I played the new Katie Gately directly afterwards

Feels like they only go backwards.

So don’t get your hopes up again.

wasn't going to even bother with this until the talkie walkie mention...

this sounds nothing like Talkie Walkie fwiw

that sucks, because the only interesting part of tame impala is the production, and i just love how talkie walkie *sounds*

yea don't care for this one bit

they/he were way better when trying to be dungen with english lyrics

I agree with the general sentiment. It's too bad he felt the only way to progress was to go with sleek synthpop, e.g. "technology-driven loneliness." Perhaps he's just lonely cuz he misses his guitar. I sure do.

I like this better, which also came out today.

Elephant Stone - Hollow (Fuzz Club) - How many psych pop dystopian sci-fi concept albums do we get before the apocalypse? If they're as good as this, hopefully lots.
https://elephantstonemusic.bandcamp.com/album/hollow-2

I'm firmly in the "old stuff was better" camp:

https://youtu.be/iuytZlmOytU

All this talkie about talkie walkie made me listen to it again after 6 years of not hearing it and it sounds so perfect at this particular time in my life. Thank you.

"Patience" is such a great song that was released last year but they aren't including it on this album? very strange indeed.

https://youtu.be/rUmV-MorIKc

I like a lot of Tame Impala songs, but they've come to embody the kind of low-effort Spotify-core that is all about "the vibes" and probably deserves to be ignored at this point. Mostly bland synthy GarageBand-sounding arrangements, vaguely emotional but banal lyrics, likely to be found on everyone's Vibes or Chill playlist, bound to be loved by kids who build their year around going to Coachella.

Like, there's nothing outrageously bad about this album. It's OK. But I don't think anyone will be thinking about it in a years time.

i thought based on descriptions in reviews this might be the first tame impala album i liked because completely ditching the psych rock in favour of chill synthpop sounded promising to me but i couldn't make it past the second track. feels very lacking in substance and i still don't like his melodies

Triggercut OTM

Tame Impala have been faced with a unique predicament as one of the few and first bands to emerge from rock's sort of 'bebop' era with a clear critical mandate.

Like, being an alternative rock band in the mid-late '00s, if you "decided to be major", on some level probably meant negotiating the transition of rock as a form intended for a general audience into something that appealed mostly to 'heads' and other rock musicians. So there was a stylistically disparate group of peers who took up this challenge together, of making rock music headier and headier without alienating the more casual listeners entirely.

But there was this brief moment afterwards when Tame Impala, as unlikely critical frontrunners, were pretty much on their own in terms of figuring out how to orient themselves. And it seems they've followed the opposite trajectory, starting off as a band for nerdy indie fans, working their way from there into Chill and Vibes playlists and taking up the mantle of Coachella prophets.

P4k review again gushing about his studio perfectionism as if 1. Obsessive sound design isn’t everywhere these days and 2. This guy is actually good at that kind of thing and the record doesn’t make you feel like you have a sinus infection and can’t hear frequencies above 2.5khz.

hm i'm kind of digging this? "one more year" and "borderline" are awesome

as is "posthumous forgiveness" (heavy synthesizer drama) and "breathe deeper" (banger) and "tomorrow's dust" (the drums are really good)

maybe i like it because i have a sinus infection right now

but i'm pretty sure this album rules

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLGwIHjhboA

sick groove

I'm liking this a bit more than I expected, since I've also been pretty cold on everything after Lonerism. I think I would like it better with a different vocalist/less banal lyrical approach. triggercut is pretty much OTM

breathe deeper is the only track i viscerally disliked, tho it does improve about 1 minute in when he changes it up from that annoying melody.

failing to see what's bland or garageband-y about the arrangement of "it might be time"

i think this one will be a slow burner and get better with each listen. i already knew "Borderline" and "It Might Be Time" and they sound like the standouts so far on this album. it's a bit long but i see myself enjoying this one more than the last one.

i LOVE this album

that "will i be more loved?" part of "borderline" is so funky and i can't get it out of my head

i do too. this is such a great album and didn't think i would like them to go in this direction but now i know it was the right move.

"Borderline", "On Track", and "Is It True" have been sounding great while being confound to my apartment on a beautiful day like today.

Really loving this album! Wasn't expecting to, especially after the savaging it got in The Quietus.

I really enjoyed it too and find it up there with the new Caribou record as my favorite pop/electronic records so far this year. I kinda feel the critical lashing is partly due to the completely ridiculous amount of success Currents got coupled with current climate of "white dude angst" being a bit of an unsympathetic theme these days.

https://www.nts.live/shows/remote-utopias/episodes/tame-impala-3rd-may-2020

^^^^ really awesome 18-minute remix of "one more year"

I just listen to the drums on this record , they’re fabuloso

I gave this another spin today and it's just not working for me, still. I think the biggest strike for me is how his vocal melodies just constantly float in this same zone without any surprises or any change. There are a few times this swings into a a really cool balearic beat, but then his moaning kicks in and pulls me right back out.

this is a seriously great cover, amazing how well they were able to recreate the sonics of the original in a live setting, while adding some signature tame impala filters. and kevin does a pretty solid impersonation of collins' lead vocal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt5DwYAu1ao

On Friday, February 18 2022, Tame Impala released The Slow Rush B-Sides & Remixes. Clocking in at 54 minutes, the 8-track project is out now and they put out this video song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j706aSetFbI