Compared to the crunchy guitar riffs of Innerspeaker, or ever-so-slightly pop turn of Lonerism, Currents beckoned listeners with layers upon layers of glimmering synths, vocal echoes and radiating bass to wade into - a producers’ masterpiece for the 2010s. The result was more polished, pop-leaning and commercially upfront than its rough-edged predecessors, painting a sheen over every note without losing any of Tame Impala’s trademark psychedelia. But if you keep the target moving, they fight pretty hard to nail you down.”
“As soon as you stay still, they can nail you to the cross. “One of the beauties of Kev is the desire to push something different, and something new,” he adds. “It was important for him to make a brave statement on his own.” “I was promoting him to not be scared of taking risks,” Grant remembers of their sessions at Parker’s home studio in Australia. Rob Grant, the Poons Head Studio producer and engineer who has worked with Parker since his days in Mink Mussel Creek, served as an advisor. Tame Impala's Kevin Parker Is Ready to Jump From Reclusive Studio Whiz to Global Alt-Rock God 8 on Billboard’s Alternative Songs thanks to its chugging riff and spot-on analogy for, well, an egotistical jerk. But it wasn’t just critics who revered his psycho-rock virtuosity: He also scored an unavoidable alt hit and a number of commercial syncs with the foot-stomping anomaly “Elephant,” which charged to No. The band’s garage rock-driven debut Innerspeaker in 2010, and more smoothed-out sophomore album Lonerism two years later, had morphed the famously obsessive and elusive Parker into an indie hero. While “New Person” ends Currents on a doubtful note, the album itself was transformative for Parker’s career. “I was halfway through making the album when I heard about it, and it gave what I was doing a lot more meaning suddenly things made a lot more sense.” “I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on my life in the past and what’s ahead of me,” he said. In a 2015 interview with Billboard, Parker said he turned 29 while writing Currents, and became fascinated by the Saturn return, an astrology term for the massive life transition people often experience around that age. During the chorus, his past and current selves battle it out to the tune of distorted drums and a grumbling bassline: After the pompous “feel like a brand new person” comes the lingering, ominous echo, “but you’ll make the same old mistakes.”
“I know that it’s hard to digest/ a realization is as good as a guess,” bandleader Kevin Parker sings, another tough pill to swallow from an album that might as well be a medicine cabinet. “New Person, Same Old Mistakes,” the woozy, six-minute long kicker, cautions listeners to be skeptical of anyone’s well-intentioned ability to change - including that of the narrator himself. Then, in the final track, he’s nearly back to square one.