My Tame Impala Obsession Was Never A Phase!

Written By : Siena Robb

It might be time to face it, Kevin Parker didn’t just shape the world of modern music, he rewired our brains. His alternative indie wizardry has really done a number on us, we are thirsty, we are consumed and we are desperate for more.

His recent release “End of Summer” gave us a taste of what kind of album to expect. The Australian icon has literally handed anticipation and excitement to us on a silver platter, and I love everything about it.

Tame Impala has always slapped me across the face (lovingly) with feelings I didn’t even know I had yet, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. From the trance-inducing debut album Tame Impala released in 2008, to his most recent soul-igniting album release The Slow Rush (2020) Parker has consistently delivered the soundtrack to our heartbreaks, revelations, crises, euphoria and everything in between. 

I have my older sister to thank for introducing Tame Impala into my life at the ripe age of ten. Listening to “Solitude Is Bliss” with a Sunnyboy in-hand is a summer memory I’ll never forget. Ever since my ice-block melting introduction, Tame Impala became more than just an artist to me, his music was a sense of therapy throughout my teen years and into my adult years. Conveniently, he was able to curate the most diverse and whimsical array of sounds that made him appropriate to listen to at any given moment. 

Parker’s fandom really formed a sense of global community after his album Currents was released in 2015. Since then we waited five years, and boy was it worth the wait. In a world that moves fast, Tame Impala’s slow-burning absence had us in a chokehold. As a collective, Tame Impala fans have noticed his five year silence and have had The Slow Rush on a rinse and repeat cycle since its release in 2020. His music isn’t just ‘good’, it’s invigorating and transforming. It ignites a sixth sense and leaves me feeling reborn. Based on the fact that online chaos breaks loose every time Kevin Parker breathes, I know I'm not the only one who thinks so. 

Currents brought us a sense of harmonious disarray. It is essentially a psychedelic love letter to ego death and heartbreak. It made us self reflect, wonder why we feel the way we do and made sure we felt it like a gut punch. Winded or not, that’s what makes it so damn great. It explores acceptance, defiance and messy growth. The introductory song on the album is “The Less I Know the Better” and explores the sting you feel when you’re a victim of romantic betrayal and have a longing to disappear. It became a vessel for unspoken feelings and shunned a light on how it feels to fall into stoicism. “I cannot vanish, you will not scare me…Try to get through it, try to push through it” are recurring lyrics that act as a motif throughout. The vinyl skipping sequence against the lyrics mimic the feeling of a mental spiral and mantra for survival. In my Tame-Impala-loving opinion (and the fact that I’m human) the album simply cannot be faulted. If you want to feel, this is the one.

The Slow Rush is themed heavily around the concept of time. Seamlessly linked to Currents it visits the concepts of nostalgia, longing, control and acceptance. “Lost in Yesterday” holds the line “Eventually terrible memories turn into great ones” which expresses the way we manipulate our mind overtime into romanticising memories that we should just try to forget. Nostalgia is revisited in “Posthumous Forgiveness” as he reflects on his past, introspectively pondering about what could’ve been. The album invites listeners to contemplate the illusion of time, and how reinvention and acceptance are a part of life. As Parker would say “It might be time to face it”.

We've indulged ourselves into every song he’s ever written, yet we never get sick of it. Not to be dramatic but the wait has really made us yearn for a new release like our lives depend on it. Now, he’s back! Mr. Parker, we’ve picked up on the 5 year release pattern you’ve got going on… it’s 2025, we can sense reality is in fact in motion and I can proudly say I’ve never been so excited about an album release.