Album of the Week: Tame Impala Currents

The challenge of following up what many critics and listeners dub a classic almost as soon as it's released is a kind of creative challenge that takes no small amount of courage to address. The fickleness of musical taste, the fear of stagnation and repetition, and fan pressure can all mix to create a lethal cocktail that can just kill any creative impulses an artist has.

So give it up to Tame Impala front man Kevin Parker for leaning into all the expectations created by the group's previous album, Lonerism, and not blinking. What he did do on Currents was dive into a whole new sonic palette and come up with a synthy, groove-heavy head trip of an album that rewards careful listening while it floats the listener away on a tinkling cloud of keys.

Parker has one of my favorite voices in music right now, and I'd listen to him do almost anything, but it's a delight to hear him front and center here. Parker can hit these high notes that can take your breath away with seeming ease, and without all the vocal tics and tricks that made Lonerism such a wild ride, Currents features some of his purist singing yet. Just listen to "The Less I Know The Better" or "Reality in Motion" to hear just why his voice is so special – there's a luminosity to his delivery and the way he layers the vocals that recalls The Beach Boys at their height.

Currents represents a great leap forward for Parker as a writer, both of music and lyrics. My favorite Tame Impala song (as of now) is "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards," and Currents feels like a full-album expansion of that sound. The hooks are there, but they're a little more subtle, a little more insinuating, but no less infectious once you find them. If anything, their hold is stronger because they sneak up on you. The band takes the repetition that can often be found in electronic music, and uses it to get these hooks into the listener. You can hear it on "Let It Happen," a seven-minute swirl of a lead single, driven by a repeated synth line that just gets into your head and plants a flag there.

When it comes to songwriting, there's a clarity that is completely refreshing on the album. In all honesty, as much as I adore Lonerism, I have no fucking idea what Parker was signing about on that album. Here, the lyrics chart the dissolution of a relationship – not in any kind of linear way, but with a kind of memory loop of stories and images. There's bitterness, self-deprecation and sly-humor in equal measure.

The best distillation of this blending of approaches to a break-up (and my favorite song on the record) is "'Cause I'm A Man," an almost Bob Dylan-eque ballad, brimming with brutal lines like "Lost in the moment for the second time,/Each fucking doubt I make, unleash a cry/I'm just pathetic, that's the reason why." It's an ode to the weakness of Parker in the relationship and men in general compared to women, and it absolutely kills.

There are more gorgeous moments than one could count throughout Currents – the interludes "Nags" and "Gossip" are particularly beautiful – and "Love/Paranoia" may well be the prettiest song about regret I've heard in ages. You also have to give it up for the sequencing and tracking, which makes the album as a whole sound damn near flawless.

In short, Tame Impala may have another classic on their hands. I can't wait to hear how the band rises to meet this new challenge next time.

Currents is out on Interscope.

Also recommended this week:

Iron & Wine & Ben Bridwell's (of Band of Horses) covers album, Sing Into My Mouth.

Future's surprise album, Dirty Sprite 2.

White Reaper's reberb-drenched White Repaer Does It Again.