Tame Impala returns with its boldest, most outward-facing album to date just as the cultural calendar hits a quiet lull. Mid-February 2020 felt like a strange moment to release a record meant for celebration, yet Slow Rush found a way to live inside the house with the listener. Kevin Parker, the mastermind behind Tame Impala, has long carried the project as a one-person studio experiment that still travels outward through live collaborations. The music here is crafted for both a party and a pulse check, a dual purpose that mirrors how audiences navigated the sudden stillness of that winter and the emergence of a new kind of social ritual around streaming and shared listening.
Primavera, the festival that often skews toward the eclectic and the artful, posed a question as the setlists began to take shape: would the music invite a crowd to move with the same looseness that first defined the project decades ago? The opening moments of the cycle felt unfocused at times, a push and pull between psychedelia’s buoyant spirit and a contemporary desire for clarity. The project began in a haze of color and loops, and although the vibe carried the familiar blur, it also pressed toward a more direct, pop-informed chorus. The groove and the edge found in Elephant suggested a hard-edged lift, while Yesterday Disappeared carried a different energy, sounding less like a continuation and more like a new dialogue with the scene. The long stretches without overt tension became moments that tested the listener’s patience, even as Runway House City Clouds, a track from the classic InnerSpeaker era, resurfaced in new form, now reclaimed from the album’s distant memory and reimagined for a present audience.
Yet there were unmistakable peaks of euphoria in the mix. Parker pushed his own sense of pop potential, embracing melodic and rhythmic sophistication that elevated tracks like Quit into what felt like a signature blend of artful complexity and catchy propulsion. The tempo of feeling shifted with twists that kept the listener off balance, much as a roller disco might unleash a sudden, gleaming surge of energy. Finally, the intimate friction of a relationship song—Here, a personal reckoning blooms into a broader emotional register—introduced a brighter, more kinetic color to the palette. The track The Less I Know the Better continued to haunt the conversation, its retro polish and sultry pulse conjuring a Primavera moment where glossy hooks meet a dancefloor heartbeat. A touch of reverence for the precursors is evident in the playful nod to The Strokes, a riff that hints at the potential of bold collaborations and the way a cancellation or a festival’s shifting schedule can ripple through an artist’s long game.