One of the most anticipated album releases of February 2020 was The Slow Rush by Tame Impala, a psychedelic rock band led by Australian musician Kevin Parker. Parker founded Tame Impala in 2007 and the band grew in popularity with the release of their third album in 2015, Currents, which won the Best Alternative Music Album at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards. The new album builds on Currents and is best characterized by a series of calm rhythms and tones, which flow nicely between the songs.
The main focus of The Slow Rush is the passage of time and how easy it is to forget that life is short by getting caught in the demands of the present. As Parker puts it in an interview with Apple Music, “We won’t be young forever but we sure do live like it . . . Our time here is short, let’s make it count. I have a plan.” And that plan was this album.
The songs in The Slow Rush speak of the chaos and impulsivity in life, the beauty of the past’s nostalgia, the choices we all have to make in the present, and the ambiguity of the future. These complex themes are conveyed within groovy beats, dramatic syntheses, calming acoustics, and touching lyrics. In many ways, it is a remarkably good album. However, some listeners may find some of its cuts a bit long, as the twelve songs on it log in at over fifty-seven minutes. Yet, actually, the length is one of the strengths of this album.
Patient listeners will find it likely to grow on them with repeated listenings. Parker noted that he wants listeners to “observe the stillness of everything as time races faster than ever,” as if he was living life at a slower and calmer pace than everyone around him.
The Slow Rush is a mesmerizing album that deserves a full listen-through. The music is consistently high-quality and unique, and no single song is especially worse than the others. However, there are a few songs that summarize the essence of Parker’s album, included below, that should be listened to first to get a good sense of the album as a whole. Each song listed has a quote from Parker talking about the song during his interview with Apple Music:
“Borderline”: “Standing at the edge of a strange new world. Any further and I won’t know the way back. The only way to see it is to be in it. Long to be immersed. Unaware and uncontrolled.”
“Lost in Yesterday”: “Nostalgia is a drug, to which some are addicted.”
“Is It True”: “Young love is uncertain. Let’s not talk about the future. We don’t know what it holds. I hope it’s forever but how do I know? When all is said and done, all you can say is, ‘we’ll see.’”