Tame Impala is today (July 17) celebrating the 10th anniversary of its beloved album, Currents, but frontman Kevin Parker is also dropping some unsubtle hints about the state of the band’s next full-length. The as-yet-untitled effort will be the follow-up to 2020’s The Slow Rush, which was released just weeks prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In an Instagram post earlier this week, Parker revealed a carefully cropped photo of a whiteboard showing a list of songs with the word “DONE” and various checkmarks written next to them. The artist debuted an unnamed new Tame Impala song last month during a Barcelona DJ set, and sources tell SPIN that planning is well underway for a fresh round of touring with a completely redesigned stage show in the months to come.
More from Spin:
- Alabama Shakes Shake, Rattle and Rock ‘N Roll Again
- Nine Inch Nails Roar Ahead With First ‘TRON: Ares’ Single
- Kaytranada, Justice Make Fall Touring Team
As for Currents, Parker took to Instagram to reflect on the first decade of its existence. The Grammy-nominated album nudged Tame Impala fully into the mainstream thanks to hits such as “The Less I Know the Better,” “Let It Happen” and “Eventually” and debuted at a then-career best No. 4 on the Billboard 200.
“Currents is 10 years old today. Really?? It doesn’t feel like that at all,” he wrote. “I guess because it’s stayed such a big part of my life since then it still feels fresh. When we play ‘Let It Happen’ live these days I still feel it deep in my soul. I guess also because it’s taken me this long to really appreciate the music. I had more than one existential crisis during the making and release of this album. I couldn’t tell if it was great or embarrassingly bad, not to mention the fans I would lose by switching up music styles so heavily.”
“People recently have asked me if I was feeling pretty chuffed with myself after making this album and the answer is always absolutely not!,” he continued. “There was often so much doubt, but I knew it was an album I had to make. The lows were low but the highs were high. And during the highs, when I had forgotten to care what people were going to think, I’d be driving in my car listening to mixes feeling like it was pure magic, and in those moments I remember thinking whatever the outcome I just had to go through with it, and believe in it even if it felt totally blind. Glad I did.”
In its contemporary review, SPIN called Currents “the purest — and most complex — distillation of everything that makes the band such a nearly physical pleasure to listen to, whether it’s the sprawling riffs found on their 2010 debut, Innerspeaker, or this album’s taffy-lurid swirls.”
Meanwhile, Parker will be back on the DJ decks for three early December shows in Australia opening for Justice, with whom he collaborated on the French electronic duo’s hit 2024 album, Hyperdrama.
To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.
