Tame Impala - "Deadbeat" (2025)

Kevin Parker, the mastermind behind Tame Impala, is self-admittedly a perfectionist and as fame and critical acclaim has come his way he has taken longer and longer to craft each new record. There was five years between Currents (which took him from indie darling to one of the biggest names in music) and The Slow Rush - which was itself nearly 6 years ago now. The Slow Rush era started with a bit of a sputter, with the original lead single, Patience, scrapped from the album and second single, Borderline, entirely remixed for the album version. I personally really like that album (and actually prefer it to Currents), but on the whole it wasn't met with the same rapturous praise that previous TI albums had been up to that point. In the years since, Kevin has been extremely active as a producer and collaborator, delving further into his dance tendencies working with Dua Lipa, Gorillaz and Justice just to name a few.

So it is not a surprise that for the 5th TI album, Kevin has gone fully dance and basically made a house and techno album. Aside from the hazy, reverb-laden vocals, the psychedelic rock and pop that the project built its name on has basically all gone. The first taste of the record we got was the closing track, End Of Summer. The song didn't have anything notably awful about it, but felt really bland and lifeless for a house track. It felt throwaway and uninspired, like something Kevin was just working on something and just wanted to throw it out there, not the lead single to a new album. Considering the false start to The Slow Rush rollout, I had hoped that maybe it was just a non-album single that wasn't going to be characteristic of the whole record; but then we heard Loser, the second single, and I started to sense that we were in for a real misfire. I like the first three seconds of that song, with its warbly, psyched out, mariachi-esque riff. But it is then repeated at nauseum for nearly four minutes with some really trite lyrics about being a loser ect. Kevin has a tendency to be indulgently self deprecating (why I'm not the biggest fan of Currents despite everyone else loving it), but one of the major themes of The Slow Rush was about Kevin accepting himself for who he is and to stop comparing himself to others about where he should be in life and how people perceive him. It feels like such a regression and also really doesn't do anything with the topic. Where Lonerism really delved into Kevin's psyche as an outsider, Loser just feels like him wearing it as an aesthetic despite him being incredibly successful and adored at this point.

Things improve a bit with the third single, Dracula - mainly due to it being more melodic and having a somewhat funky and fun bass groove. It actually feels like a complete song, where End Of Summer and Loser just felt like first drafts. However, it is far from TI's best, and does get a little repetitive over a few listens with its simple melody and kind of garish Halloween theming. The only other somewhat redeeming song is the opener, My Old Ways. The intro to the song is a very stripped back vocal passage from Kevin and stark piano riff, which is then met by a bouncy, danceable house groove that comes in at the midpoint. It hasn't got anything on any track from TI's back catalogue, but stands out by a country mile when compared to the dross on the rest of the album.

Deadbeat's biggest crime is that for a dance album, it is just so boring. It's instrumentally lifeless, and so poe-faced and self-serious. Outside of Dracula, it has no sense of fun. It's 55 minutes of Kevin moping about, complaining about 'how much of a loser he is' over washed out, greyscale beats with no sense of melody or groove. No Reply sees Kevin complaining about a mismatched relationship where he comes across as the loser in the situation. The lyric "You're a cinephile, I watch Family Guy" has already been memed on the internet for how dreadful it is. Everything about the song is so tiring, from the repetitive beat to Kevin's monotonous drawl. Oblivion sounds like a smooshy, reverbed to hell version of the Minecraft soundtrack with a beat under it; and Piece Of Heaven is the same but for Enya's Sail Away. The first half of Not My World is pretty boring, but then does layer up into more enjoyable dance groove towards the back end of the song.

While the album is initially bland and lifeless, but generally tolerable; it's at Ethereal Connection that it really starts to wear on me. The track is a needlessly long and uneventful techno tune with not a single moment of interest within its runtime. It kills what little engagement I have with the record and makes me want to turn it off before the last few tracks roll past and fail to hook me back in. Even the good TI albums can be criticised for being a bit too long, and Deadbeat really doesn't justify its length.

Everything about Deadbeat, from its name to its boring music and defeatist lyrical content make it feel almost like self sabotage. Part of me wonders if Kevin has subconsciously deliberately released a half-arsed stinker of an album to try and relieve himself of the pressure of expectations that his legacy has created. The drop in quality is just that significant and that weird. Kevin knows how to make a dance song, just listen back to Let It Happen, or Breath Deeper, or Neverender with Justice. I'm glad I'm done with this review, so I don't ever need to listen to Deadbeat again.

Top Tracks: My Old Ways

3/10