About It Might Be Time

After releasing two singles this spring, Tame Impala seemed in need of recalibration. The lightweight offerings dialed back the intricacy of 2015’s Currents, Kevin Parker’s dazzlingly soulful psych-rock opus, and turned up the ’70s yacht and soft rock with little sense of excitement to either. Now, with his new album The Slow Rush officially forthcoming, Parker returns with what should be a fix: “It Might Be Time,” a keyboard-centered crusade through his beloved psych-rock and art-pop worlds. Coasting on jaunty Supertramp-indebted keys and emphatically blown-out drums, “It Might Be Time” has a more meaty and interesting sound than Parker’s releases earlier in the year, yet it still holds back from any of the sharp turns and ideas that grant his music a sense of wonder. At its core, “It Might Be Time” is a mutation on ’70s psych, pop, and electronic music, ornamented with small but potent production flourishes: the stomping percussion and Parker’s voice fall out entirely in a few unexpected fakeouts, while a modulated synth line wails like a warning siren for the freakout to come by the song’s end. Parker takes stock of the passage of time throughout, a reliable theme for Tame Impala: “I’m only tired of all these voices/Always saying nothing lasts forever,” he bemoans. “It might be time to face it/You ain’t as young as you used to be.” Parker may be trying to tackle some sense of accountability here, but delivered in a wash of malaise and familiarity, it’s joined by a sense of diminishing returns.