Guys, I really tried to dislike this album. Honestly, I didn’t want to enjoy it. When I heard that Kevin Parker, the Tame Impala nucleus, was directing their third LP towards dance music, I was pretty hesitant. The notion of an artist ‘re-inventing’ themselves with a focus on beats and dance is so clichéd and overdone that the mere mention of it invites me to scream. In fact, the only group I can think of who have successfully “gone electro” are The Strokes, whose fourth album Angles (2011), managed to introduce plenty of beats and dance into the mix without sounding like total shit. So having the “electro” conversation with Tame Impala was a little concerning. Their first album, Innerspeaker (2010), was a strong foray into to the realm of psych-rock, and continued the good work of early 70s psych pioneers like The 13th Floor Elevators. Their second, Lonerism (2012), while still firmly planted in psychedelics, was much heavier, with a more alternative bent. However these albums weren’t perfect, and I felt that they both showed that Parker, despite his obvious talent, needed to learn to focus, and perhaps to cull. They were both bloated and probably could have been … Continue reading alternotunes – Currents