On Oct. 17 Australian singer and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Parker, better known for his stage name, Tame Impala, released his fifth studio album “Deadbeat.”
The album consists of 12 tracks with a run time of 56 minutes, all of which is produced, written and performed by Parker. This follows a similar trend as his previous projects, with “The Slow Rush,” “Currents,” “Lonerism” and “Innerspeaker” each having a runtime under an hour.
This album is also his first as a father, as his daughter was born the year after his previous project. Parker sneaks in paternal references in “No Reply” and “Dracula” to “Family Guy” and Pablo Escobar respectively.
When you think of Tame Impala, you think of a unique kind of psychedelic pop unlike anything else in music. It’s quirky and it’s weird. But for Parker, it just works.
Now, a decade after the release of his magnum opus “Currents,” Parker has ditched that formula in exchange for a project that feels a lot more like a dance record than a pop one.
A perfect example of this is the album’s lead single, “End Of Summer.”
When the promotional post for this song hit Instagram on July 20, fans rejoiced. It had been five years since his previous project, “The Slow Rush,” and fans began to speculate if this finally meant Impala’s return to music.
Five days after that post, the single was officially released. On first listen, I had a very mixed opinion of the track. I thought the experiments Parker was trying on this song were an uncomfortable adjustment compared to his previous album.
However, when I re-listened to this song in the context of the album, I loved it. The dance themes of the track and the overall message in the lyrics fit the project well and it is a great choice for a closer.
The biggest highlight from this album is the third and final single, “Dracula.” In a word, the song is addictive. Sonically, there are heavy influences from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” with synthesizers being the dominant instrument in the mix and a simple but effective alternate drum beat.
Another highlight for me is the fifth track “Oblivion.” The song opens with a classic dance beat, only to switch after 10 seconds to a synth-heavy melody under lyrics that are nothing short of masterful. The lyrics tell a story of Parker loving someone so hard that he would rather be dead than exist without her.
However, this project does have its flaws. One of its biggest is the nearly eight-minute-long ninth track “Ethereal Connection.” Parker has his fair share of songs with lengthy runtimes, but in each of them, he’s able to keep the listener entertained for the full duration.
It’s that very objective that he fails to achieve on this song. The opening two minutes and 30 seconds are dull and boring. When Parker finally enters 15 seconds later, the lyrics feel stale and bland. This isn’t even mentioning the other multi-minute gap he takes in the second half of the song, which is also anchored by a dull and boring instrumental.
Overall, Tame Impala’s return project is very solid. It’s taken him a while to get back into music, but it’s because Parker is meticulous and picky, and wants to put his best foot forward in every single album he releases. “Deadbeat” is a perfect example of that fact and a great entry into the legendary catalogue of Tame Impala.
