Remember how in That '70s Show, the shorthand signifier for it being the '70s, was how they'd pan around a table and all the characters would be sitting there stoned out of their minds talking about stuff? It was weird because, as that show went on, the fact that it was set in a previous decade kinda became beside the point. When Tame Impala first came out, their sound looked pretty distinctly to be of a previous era. It was the way it was recorded (so warm) as much as it was the way frontman Kevin Parker used his voice to meet the instrumentation in the middle, rather than overpower what was already going on. It felt like everything was part of one psychedelic whole. Now, the fact that Tame Impala are unabashed about recalling past decades of zonked-out rock music is beside the point, because "Apocalypse Dreams" feels like they figured something new out. It's a huge song: drums sound like they're going to burst, keys collide with guitar just long enough for that guitar to float over the whole song—and then there's Parker, whose lyrics always seem to attack the idea of life's inevitable move forward, whether you want it to or not. When he sings everything is changing and there's nothing I can do, he doesn't sound resigned, he just sounds understanding—and that's a pretty heavy, but important way to feel. Tame Impala's Lonerism is out in October on Modular.
Update 7/12/2012: Tame Impala have set a release date for their new album, Lonerism. It will come out in the US October 9th via Modular. Check out the album's cover art and preorder it now, here, and see the tracklist below.
Lonerism:
01 Be Above It
02 Endors Toi
03 Apocalypse Dreams
04 Mind Mischief
05 Music to Walk Home By
06 Why Won't They Talk to Me?
07 Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
08 Keep on Lying
09 Elephant
10 She Just Won't Believe Me
11 Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control
12 Sun's Coming Up
