The first time I got a taste of just how big Tame Impala has gotten was when he headlined Primavera Sound 2022. I thought everything Kevin Parker had put out was pretty great, even as he’d smoothed the edges of his sound on 2020’s The Slow Rush; but as I tried to make my way through the crowd beginning to get lost in his music, it was somehow the last place I wanted to be. Listening from the back, songs I’d connected to suddenly felt distant, vacuous, vast, and repetitive. It’s the same feeling I get while listening to his latest album, Deadbeat, which has a beating heart beneath its big, thumping beats but wastes too much time crowding and dramatizing its purest ideas. Even when Parker seems comfortable letting its imperfections show, it feels like an aesthetic decision, one that has little to do with the flaws he admits to throughout the album. It could satisfy the biggest festival audiences, no doubt, but you start to long for the record behind it: the version of Deadbeat that sounds like Parker alone in his room, spiraling.
1. My Old Ways
Deadbeat is off to an intriguing start with ‘My Old Ways’, which becomes more frustrating the more layers it piles on. You can imagine Parker coming up with the perky piano loop and using it to sing about falling back into depression – or, as he puts it, “downhill sloping.” There’s a rawness to the first few moments, but it’s ironically when he has to remind himself he’s only human that this quality dissipates, opting instead to make emptiness sound big. The house beat, not to mention all those sparkling synths, sound counterintuitive, barely even reveling in the powerlessness. I would rather hear the demo version – then again, why bother when there’s ‘Feels Like We Only Go Backwards’?
2. No Reply
Unlike the opener, ‘No Reply’ does a better job at hunching over its lo-fi arrangement, drawing the song out with some melancholic piano. It would be refreshing if it didn’t spotlight some of Parker’s clunkiest lyrics: “You’re a cinephile, I watch Family Guy/ On a Friday night, off a rogue website/ When I should be out/ With some friends of mine/ Runnin’ rеckless wild in the streets at night/ Singin’ ‘Life, oh, lifе,’ with our arms out wide.” It’s memeable in ways you can’t quite qualify, not too far from The Life of a Showgirl territory. The sad thing is that Parker’s music, even at its most dour, can be restless and life-affirming – remember, Currents is a breakup album. It might be for the introverted and uninvited, but it still stretches its arms out wide. It at least supplements, while this just sulks.
3. Dracula
Turns out the cornball in Parker knocks out a better song when he’s out thinking he should be home, rather than being home thinking he should be out. (Oh, the dichotomy!) Musically, his Thriller-indebted, melodramatic pop instincts fare well with the song’s playful self-deprecation: “I’m on the verge of caving in, I run back to the dark/ Now I’m Mr. Charisma, fucking Pablo Escobar.” He’s still prone to regression, but can’t help being driven around town by his friends. Family Guy will have to wait.
4. Loser
Parker continues in the self-defeatist vein of ‘Dracula’, but ‘Loser’ is way less fun. The riff is decent enough, but the track gets tediously repetitive, evidently running out ideas the more it attempts to integrate. The gleaming synth line tracing the melody as he sings “I get the message, I learned my lesson” is awfully distracting. The bridge about roaming dark streets alone is tacky; we already know he’s one to run from the sunlight, but the charisma’s all gone.
5. Oblivion
‘Oblivion’ lifelessly mashes up a dembow beat with electronic blips and strings, undercutting the longing at its core. It’s hard to reconcile the lethargic rhythm with the gravity of Parker’s conclusion: “If I don’t get to you my love/ Then I choose oblivion.” Chris Martin would at least pour his heart out over it.
6. Not My World
How much music can an album contain about drifting aimlessly in the street and lamenting how un-normal your life is? ‘Not My World’ starts out actually sounding like a demo, written haphazardly after one of those walks – but then its wistful haze opens up midway through the song, giving way to a house beat with some real oomph. It sounds like burrowing deeper into his own world, more exciting in its wordlessness than some stranger’s 9 to 5.
7. Piece of Heaven
Schmaltzy and submissive, ‘Piece of Heaven’ is another peculiar fusion of influences – a bit of Enya here, some Timbaland there. But the result, as Parker arrives at the divine pleasure he’s been yearning for throughout the album, is hazy and underwhelming. If he can make emptiness sound big, why not a small piece of heaven?
8. Obsolete
In almost stark contrast to ‘Piece of Heaven’, ‘Obsolete’ frets over a strained relationship – you can even hear Parker trying to compose himself between verses. Perhaps his lyrics would scan as vulnerable if they didn’t feel like fodder for the groovy beat, which only makes it feel more tonally disjointed. “Talk is cheap, but the words cut deep,” he repeats. If only his lyrics did, too.
9. Ethereal Connection
Parker has referenced western Australia’s “bush doof” rave scene as a main influence on Deadbeat, but it’s not until the prog-house workout ‘Ethereal Connection’ that you actually hear it. Granted, it stretches out to nearly eight minutes. And though it doesn’t have as many nooks and crannies as you’d wish, it’s the one song where Parker’s words, his commitment to this love, feels spiritually aligned with the cosmic thump of the music, reminding me of Jamie xx’s ‘Falling Together’. “Take a ride,” he offers, actually believing in it.
10. See You on Monday (You’re Lost)
And so we go from music to get lost in to music about feeling lost, which should be distinguished from music about being a loser. A taste of the temptation alluded to in ‘My Old Ways’, the track leaves a sour feeling despite its pleasant melody. He wants to lead a normal life but dreads being called steady, so he’s led astray. Or lets it happen, I guess.
11. Afterthought
Whatever happened here – maybe the song itself was a bit of an afterthought, tucked in before the final track – it’s the most exhilarating thing on the album. “I can be emotional/ If you need me to,” he declares, and for once, it sounds like there’s several emotions vying for space, even as it delivers one of the album’s strongest pop hooks.
12. End of Summer
When it came out as a sprawling preview of the album, ‘End of Summer’ felt right – or at least, correctly timed, blurring the line between warmth and malaise; the kind of song you’d put on the dancefloor, but not if you’re not feeling a wee bit sad. Maybe you find the vocal hook annoying, but the more Parker’s words are obscured, the more they seep into the general vibe of the music. And this is a vibe-driven album, as emotionally transparent and defeated as Parker makes himself sound. It’s just that by the end of it, you’re so exhausted that you’d rather not hear another seven-minute track, even if you enjoyed it as a single. The thing about summer, like dance, is that you don’t want it to end; Deadbeat makes it feel like the party’s already over and you’re just coasting off the energy.
