Sarah’s Review On: “The Slow Rush”

Sarahs+Review+On%3A+The+Slow+Rush

Sarah Haylow, Writer

I’ve listened to a lot of artists in my lifetime, but one artist that I’ve never gotten a chance to really sit down and try is Tame Impala. I’ve been privy to some of their music in the past, but am ashamed to admit that I don’t really know much about their music. With the new release of their album titled ‘The Slow Rush’, I can finally do that! 

 

One More Year-

Fun beat and start. It feels kind of techno and retro which is fun. It has an echoey effect that I find interesting. The lyrics are kind of lengthy and there is a part where he just keeps shouting “one year!” which put me off a little. I do think the beat is fun and mystical though which was enough to keep me interested throughout the duration of the song. It’s a really long song, clocking in at a whopping five minutes and 24 seconds. It apparently took roughly the same amount of time it took for us to preheat our oven which I find funny.

 

Instant Destiny-

The start to the song is immediate, which caused me to jump. The singer comes in right off the bat and delivers a song that sounds like it’s from the 70’s. The song had me bobbing my head up and down the whole time. It feels like a kind of chill song, it’s not too intense. The song itself appears to be a love song about how they can go and do crazy stuff right now because they’re in love.

 

Borderline-

I didn’t really care for the beginning of this song and continued to not like it throughout the remainder of it. This is one of their shorter songs, being only four minutes and thirty six seconds. The beat isn’t bad, but his voice feels like it blends too much into the background.

 

Posthumous Forgiveness-

I feel like I can actually hear his voice pretty well in this song, which is saying a lot about the rest of the album. He seems to actually experiment a little with his voice in this song which I can appreciate (especially since he doesn’t try anything interesting vocally in a lot of the other songs on the album). The song is another six minute song, but I’m hating it far less than most of the other songs I have listened to. It takes a pretty dramatic turn in sound about four minutes in which threw me off. I am once again floored at the fact that I can hear his voice pretty clearly. This feels like a very chilled out song, it’s nothing too serious. I am kind of neutral about this one.

 

Breathe Deeper-

I really like the start to this song! The song itself is SIX WHOLE MINUTES. For an album that has slightly more than the normal amount of songs that an album usually has, their songs are really long. The rest of the song feels a bit repetitive. I’m not super impressed with it if I’m being honest, which made the start of the song kind of a let down. I ultimately couldn’t get past the repetitiveness of the chorus. I think this song is for a certain type of person and I’m not really that person. It’s a shame since it started off so well. Around four minutes and forty seconds it takes a weird dive and goes a completely different direction in sound. It goes kind of techno and has some repeated lyrics in the background, which fill up the remainder of the time. The ending was definitely a let down. I felt like they planned for a six minute song but ended up not needing all that time. In a desperate attempt to fill it, they just shoved a bunch of repeated lyrics in for the last minute and a half.

 

Tomorrow’s Dust- 

This has a unique sounding start that I dig. There are interesting drum sounds in the beginning which I think are fun. This is yet another long song, being five and a half minutes. It’s a very wordy song too. I ended up not enjoying it that much, as it honestly sounds like most of the other songs on the tracklist.

 

On Track-

I like the piano beginning. This is another long song, clocking in at five minutes. This is another track that feels reminiscent of the 70’s or 80’s. By the time I had made it to the first chorus, I’d decided that I didn’t like it. It seems to be about how he is still on track to achieving his dreams despite all of the hardships he’s faced. It takes a weird pause at three minutes and thirty seconds and then jumps back into the chorus, which was kind of cool. The song isn’t awful, but I honestly found it quite boring. So boring in fact that I kind of spaced out in the middle of it and forgot what I was doing. 

 

Lost in Yesterday-

I had high hopes for this song and ended up liking it, mostly because I could hear what he was saying which is a miracle. I was actually tapping my feet and moving my head which I found astounding. I actually forgot to take notes because I was so busy dancing in my seat. It’s definitely a fun song to dance to and even my sister liked this song and she’s hated all the songs she’s heard from the album.

 

Is It True-

Another pretty good song. It has an 80’s vibe and feels like a good dance song. I could also understand him really well which is a rare occurrence in this album. I honestly really enjoyed this song and don’t have many bad things to say about it. The beat is funky and fun and it had me moving throughout the whole thing.

 

It Might Be Time-

I think this is my favorite song on the album. His voice actually sounds clear and interesting. The beat is really good, the song isn’t unnecessarily long, and the lyrics feel relevant to my life. He talks about the stress of growing up and how he just wishes he can be young forever and not have to face the fact that he’s getting older. He’s afraid that now that he’s older he’s not as cool as he used to be and that he just isn’t the same person he once was. I really like this song.

 

Glimmer-

This song has an interesting beginning. It starts with a guy talking about how cranking the bass up makes music better. This is a really short song in comparison to all the others. The song is two minutes and nine seconds. The beginning beat is pretty fun, but you can barely hear his voice over the music. If I wasn’t watching a lyric video I don’t think I’d understand what he was saying. The song finished and I actually said out loud: “That’s it?”. I think it’s safe to say that I didn’t love this song. 

 

One More Hour-

This is the longest song by far. It is seven minutes long and is a very slow paced song. I actually really like it, the drums in the background sound really cool. It feels like an old rock song with some modern techno elements mixed in. The only thing this song really suffers from is its length, which I think can be shortened considerably and still be a good song.

 

I left this album with more negative feelings towards it than positive. I felt that the main problem was his voice. He kind of drawls on and on and doesn’t do anything interesting with his voice. The tracks behind the vocals are usually always somewhat interesting, but his voice feels really unimpressive. Majority of the songs suffer from this problem and from the fact that they all sounded very similar. I’m a person who listens to artists who tend to vary in style from song to song, so maybe I’m just a little spoiled in that sense and that’s why I came out of this feeling so negative. I did start to enjoy the album a little more towards the end and I noticed that this album seemed to have the same fate that many albums do nowadays. So much money is spent on production for half the album that the other half falls flat as a result. It’s a common problem that many artists face and it’s a shame, because I really have enjoyed a lot of Tame Impala’s music in the past. I only hope that their music improves, because I would definitely be willing to give them another chance in the future.