Album Review: Tame Impala - Currents

4/5

Anyone tuning into the BBC’s recent coverage of the Glastonbury music festival may have been puzzled by the appearance halfway through DJ Mark Ronson’s set of an intense-looking man with a trendy-barista beard. The mysterious crooner was Kevin Parker, whose day job is fronting Australian band Tame Impala.

Actually, “fronting” is an understatement: Parker essentially is Tame Impala — on the group’s third album he plays every instrument, sings every song and drills deep into his personal life for lyrics that veer between playful and self-flagellating.

However, the biggest shock isn’t the often unflinching tone Parker adopts deconstructing his split from fellow indie musician Melody Prochet of Melody’s Echo Chamber . What’s most striking is the casual fashion in which Parker has set to one side Tame Impala’s signature dreamy, droning sound in favour of a vintage synth-pop that owes a little to Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky’ and a great deal to the clubland odysseys of producer Giorgio Moroder.

That Parker is in a mood for risk-taking is made obvious from the decision to begin Currents with the near eight minute long ‘Let It Happen’. Far from wearing out its welcome, the track whooshes by like a bullet train, a blur of locomotive beats and chugging hooks. From there, Currents embarks on a pedal-to-the-floor groove odyssey, with ‘The Less I Know The Better’, in particular, supporting Parker’s claim of being inspired to write the new record while listening to the Bee Gees in a “heightened state of consciousness”.

Cumulatively, the effect is equal parts disorientating and beguiling. Never before has retro disco been repurposed in service of a breakup album broiling with self-loathing. Parker doesn’t always get the balance right, with several numbers descending into beige noodling just when you expect an epic chorus to come charging over the horizon. But Currents is consistently intriguing, a surprise around every corner.

In addition to constituting Tame Impala’s outstanding moment to date, it may plausibly be the release that helps the Perth outfit crack the mainstream. As Parker demonstrated at Glastonbury, the spotlight holds absolutely zero fear for him.