Besides love, I’d bet the survey says loneliness is the runner up for most popular song themes. Maybe it’s a grass-is-greener phenomenon, maybe it’s envious curiosity, but I always am a little jealous of the people who seem to be content to attend concerts +0 or dine solo at fancy restaurants sans iDistraction. Historically, it seems like the coolest people are out wandering lonely as clouds, not worrying about who they’re going to take to see Steve Harvey’s live comedy act because they really want to go and damn all you naysayers out there.

With a (somewhat ironic) jump on the bandwagon, Tame Impala has joined the ranks of all the loners of and by whom we gregarious folk are constantly in half awe and half bewildered. Their new release, Lonerism, is not a totally unexpected follow-up to their well-received 2010 debut, Innerspeaker, with tracks like “Why Won’t They Talk To Me?” running in a vein of wistful, yet somehow enviable, isolation. Pairing depressing lyrics like “Destined to be / Lonely old me… But I don’t really care anyway” with a neo-psychedelic, playfully moody soundscape that seems to proclaim downplayed self-assuredness, Tame Impala has distilled the cool kind of loneliness, recorded it in the physical form of Lonerism, and will sell it to you on October 9th via Modular Records.

STREAM: Tame Impala – “Why Won’t They Talk To Me?”