Album Reviews // Tame Impala // Deadbeat

Columbia Records

Australian musician Kevin Parker, who records as Tame Impala, released his fifth studio album, titled Deadbeat. The album features 12 tracks that move fluidly between psychedelic rock and electronica. The record opens with "My Old Ways," an immediate standout with a warm, hypnotic beat. "Dracula" is instantly catchy, with Parker singing, "Run from the sun like Dracula," a nod to Bram Stoker's Gothic novel. The single quickly sank its teeth into listeners, becoming Tame Impala's first entry on the Billboard Hot 100. "See You on Monday (You're Lost)" slows the tempo and strips everything back. Guided by soft piano, it's a moment of calm amid the album's shifting textures. It's the kind of song you could fall asleep to, not from boredom, but peace. Calm doesn't define the entire album, though. A handful of tracks turn from quiet introspection, as Parker experiments with electronic soundscapes. "Ethereal Connection" is a seven-minute techno track that pulses like something you might stumble upon in Creative Commons, or, as one YouTuber put it, "something you'd hear on BBC Radio when another duke dies at Buckingham Palace." Even when Parker explores new territory, the music still sounds unmistakably like Tame Impala. There's a familiar sense of introspection and mix of melancholy that's uniquely his.