Tame Impala seem to be back in business, after a four-year hiatus and a new album seems like it is on production. The Australian indie rock band was a guest in last weekend’s edition of Saturday Night Live, presented by Sandra Oh, and they awarded the fans with two new songs: Patience and Borderline.
These are their first songs, since 2015, when they released the mostly pop driven album Currents, which included successes like ‘Cause I’m a Man’, ‘Let it Happen’ and ‘The Less I Know the Better’. Last week they dropped the new song ‘Patience’, which ironically is a feeling fans have been struggling with, due to the absence of brand-new content from the Perth band in the latter years.
‘Patience’ follows the genre that Tame Impala got fans used to, even though it drops a bit the psychedelic vibe, in favor of a more nostalgic chill song, verging with modern beats. It is a song you probably wouldn’t be surprised to listen in a VH1’s classic 80’s hits playlist and thus it captures that always enjoyable atmosphere, which takes you to a place where there is a jukebox, a disco ball and lots of fellas with greasy hair.
Then, the lyrics clearly make it seem like a blast from the past – literally. ‘Did I count the days wrong? Did we just go back, all the way to step one?’, the interrogations, who question about the direction of a one’s life, at the same time make you wonder if this is just a reminder of how the world has been going backwards and why nostalgia seems like such a guilty deadly pleasure.
Anyway, thoughts and interpretations that fans will have time to make. However, in the long running NBC TV show of the Saturday Night’s, the group not only played ‘Patience’ to the live audience, but they also debuted an original theme, entitled ‘Borderline’.
This one looks again to talk about time and its nuances, like in these verses from the pre-chorus: ‘Then I saw the time, watched it speeding by, Watched your spirit ride like a train, Like a train’. With a more modern approach than the one in ‘Patience’, ‘Borderline’ is borderline the quality content that Tame Impala has been produced since their debut, faithful to their intricate lyrics and introducing a catchy hook.
‘Will I be known and loved?’ is the question delivered on and on and makes it again sound like an existential tune, with a chilling sound that takes you in a melancholic but thrilling ride. So, what should we expect for the future?
First, the band is set to play at Coachella festival, in Indio, California, on April 13th and 20th and it is expected they reveal some more songs from the, still unnamed, upcoming album. Still, the fans might need to hold their horses until late June for the release of the full collection.
The lead singer and front man of the Aussie group, Kevin Parker, stated in an interview last year that he expected the new production from the band to be out before 2019’s summer. “I would very much hope so I’d be very disappointed if we didn’t have something out by then” he admitted. “I mean, I love playing the songs live, I love playing ‘Currents’ songs, I love playing ‘Lonerism’ songs and everything, but I think I’m ready to play some other songs live. All the instinctual things are there”.
Meanwhile, what have the band members been doing in the four years away from production? Besides going on tour and headlining festivals worldwide – after Coachella, they are going to be on stage at Glastonbury (UK), in late June – they have been collaborating with other artists and Kevin himself was, unexpectedly, featured in Kanye West’s album ‘Ye’.
Parker was credit in the track ‘Violent Crimes’ even though he was unaware that he would be part of it. He confessed to have sent some samples to Kanye, but he didn’t have any response and so he concluded they wouldn’t make the cut, until a friend told me the news. ‘That’s the thing about being a rogue contributor: you’re not in the driver’s seat, so you don’t really know how things are going to pan out’, he said.
