Album Review: Tame Impala – Deadbeat
2 min read
Kevin Parker, the force behind Tame Impala, has long walked the tightrope between dreamy psych rock, pop ambition, and introspective songwriting, refining a sound that feels both cosmic and deeply personal. After a five year gap since The Slow Rush, Deadbeat arrives as perhaps his boldest bet yet – an album that leans heavily into dance and electronic textures.
From the opening bars of My Old Ways, we start the journey with a simple, rolling piano motif that meets a kick-drum pulse, as Kevin confesses to returning habits, familiar cycles. No Reply tightens the tempo with a clipped, ambient house soundscape. It’s more mood than hook, the kind of song that asks you to focus more on the subtleties within the percussion of the track. By the time we hit Dracula, the album’s ambition becomes a little clearer – this is a slicker, tighter number, pulsing with disco dance influence. It’s dark, sensual and a little playful in its gothic overtones.
Loser follows with a dusty funk undercurrent. Kevin’s falsetto floats above an insistent groove, winding between self-critique and an ironic kind of shrug. Oblivion and Not My World bring us slow-burn synth layers, reverb-heavy guitars and Kevin’s trademark doubled vocals. Oblivion leans into extended grooves and hypnotic repetition whereas Not My World is more haunted, reflective and minimal in its early moments before building towards a kind of glowing release. Piece Of Heaven is a mood booster with lush synth strings, electro-funk melodies and lyrics that waver between confession and demand. There’s undertones to this track that sound as though Kevin has sampled Enya’s Orinoco Flow. Obsolete and Ethereal Connection push further into mood and texture – again, less about hooks and more about creating weight and atmosphere. The seven minute Ethereal Connection is the album’s most immersive trip and, in my opinion, a gorgeously stretched piece that trades chorus for enchanting and hypnotic sound design.
Onto the final stretch, See You On Monday (You’re Lost), Afterthought and End Of Summer give Deadbeat its closing arc. See You On Monday (You’re Lost) drops in with plaintive intimacy and Afterthought gently rattles with melancholy, looping phrases that feel like someone circling again and again over the same memory. End Of Summer closes things out in an acid house, expansive drift, like a sunset DJ set – long, slow and again, a little melancholic. Overall, Deadbeat is an intriguing pivot from Tame Impala’s previous discography. The production craft is still immaculate and yields some genuinely lovely passages, however, if you loved the psychedelic sweep of earlier Tame Impala, expect something more restrained and club leaning here with Deadbeat.
