By Tyler Bui | Assistant News Editor
Tame Impala’s fourth album, released lat Friday, features 12 tracks with lyrics that reflect on his past and uncover intimate parts of his life, while continuing to move away from his past sounds of rock.
Kevin Parker is the creator of Tame Impala, a rock band popularly known for headlining music festivals such as Coachella, Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits.
He produced yet another album that captures his signature psychedelic sound, while each song touches upon different subjects in his life mostly surrounding the aurora of time. With each track filled with Parker’s personal memories, audiences learn more about him with each song.
The album begins with the track “One More Year,” which talks about the importance of living life to the best of their ability. Parker encompasses his overarching theme of time with the phrase ‘one more year’ which repeats throughout the song.
In an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, Parker said he knew from the start that he wanted “One More Year” to be the first song on the album.
“[The song is] kind of about realizing you’ve found yourself in a stale part of your life. You’re in this kind of perpetual routine and it’s like you’re stuck in your comfort zone and the only way to break out is to decide to just give it one more year,” Parker said. “It’s like talking to your friends going ‘Hey guys, let’s just do what we do for one more year and then after that time we will get our lives in order. Let’s just be crazy for one more year.’”
The second song on the album, “Instant Destiny,” is sentimental — and about putting your faith in love and being fearless. He reflects on his relationship and proposal to his wife and references the moment before he proposed to her. Parker mentions their “forever” and being “lovers until the end of time.”
In “Posthumous Forgiveness,” Parker talks about his deceased father, and the past struggles in their relationship. While he mentions that his father was the person he looked up to the most, he alludes to the fact that his father left him with many unanswered questions when he passed. He ends the song with a verse about how he wishes he could share his life and play his music for his dad.
“It Might Be Time” delves further into the theme of time, where Parker surfaces the truth about people —how they change over time. The song was the second single released from the album.
“Enjoy this quirky new song about your own inner paranoid thoughts telling you you’ve lost your mojo, and whose drum sound took me about 1 of those 4 billion years. love you all,” Parker said on Instagram.
The last track on the album, “One More Hour,” looks at Parker’s past, and he has to look forward to in the future. He is ready to live in the present, in love and unworried about the unknown.
My favorite part about this album is not any particular song, but rather the personal aspect of Parker’s lyrics. We are able to get a glimpse into not only his thoughts, but his past and even to see how he has been shaped to create the music he does today.
While a part of me misses the old rock roots of Parker’s earlier music, I really enjoy this album. I think he has opened a new door to his listeners, by letting them deeper into his mind through his music. If you compare The Slow Rush to other albums on a surface level, it may seem drastically different — but I enjoy this new side of Parker.
Parker is one of my favorite artists, and I think Tame Impala puts on the best live performance anyone could experience. With his psychedelic sounds combined with memorizing visuals that bring the crowd together, each performance is an unforgettable experience that makes me wish it would never end.
As Parker is notorious for his live performances with iconic songs like “Elephant,” “The Less I Know The Better,” and “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards,” it will be interesting to see which parts of this album Parker will incorporate into his upcoming gigs.
