Tame Impala. You either know he’s just one guy, or you haven’t heard of him. The neo-psychedelic outfit known as Tame Impala, which consists of simply multi-instrumentalist Kevin Parker (on studio recordings), has been one of the biggest names in psychedelic pop and rock for over a decade. His debut album, InnerSpeaker, was released in 2010, which I would describe as a reverb-heavy psychedelic rock journey with influences from the likes of Sgt. Peppers – era Beatles. From there, Tame Impala’s second album, Lonerism, released in 2012, would bring more experimentation to his sound, and his third album, Currents, would see Parker moving in a more synth-heavy and psych pop-adjacent direction. He would begin the 2020s with The Slow Rush, which began to incorporate more dance and nu-disco influences and continued the pop direction he began on Currents. This now leads us to Tame Impala’s fifth album, and his second album of this decade: Deadbeat, released on October 17, 2025.
On this new record, Tame Impala slides straight into dance-pop, EDM, and house music, stripping back some of the reverbed and psych-heavy instrumentals of his past projects. I have been invested in the music of Tame Impala for years, and I have enjoyed the creative and immersive soundscapes on display in all his projects so far. InnerSpeaker and Currents are some of my favorite psych rock/pop albums of all time. However, The Slow Rush, while still a good listen, is what I consider his weakest so far, and I was hoping to see Deadbeat bring back a new, fresh sound. In this review, I’ll give my thoughts and opinions about this brand new record, including where I think it succeeds, and where I think it falls short.
To start with the positives: I love Parker’s voice. Across Tame Impala’s discography, his reverbed and higher-pitched vocals have always added to the otherworldly sound of his projects, and on Deadbeat, he delivers similarly catchy and emotive vocal performances. From his higher, sprawling vocals on tracks like “My Old Ways” and “Piece of Heaven” to his earworm choruses on dance-pop cuts like “Dracula,” “Obsolete,” and “Afterthought,” he uses his voice to communicate feelings of loneliness and rejection while showing off his ability to write strong pop melodies. The instrumentation also does a great job of creating grooves and rhythms that make you want to dance (which is necessary if you are going to make a dance album). The repeated piano melodies of “My Old Ways” and the guitar and bass rhythms at the end of “Obsolete” show this off particularly well.
I also appreciate the willingness to experiment that Parker shows throughout Deadbeat. Tracks such as “Not My World” and especially “End of Summer” move into an ethereal full-on house style that he has never done on a solo record. I thought it was intriguing to see him move fully into a new sound on certain tracks. It’s a risky move that can be hit-or-miss, but it does result in some fresh and mesmerizing moments. “End of Summer,” a 7-minute house track, ends off the album on a very strong note in my opinion, creating a contemplative yet still danceable atmosphere that makes great use of repeated vocal samples, sparse synths, and, of course, Parker’s reverbed voice.
Although my opinion of the album is positive overall, I do have issues with Deadbeat. To start, I generally enjoyed Tame Impala’s dance-pop tracks, while the full EDM and house tracks did not always work for me. Songs such as “No Reply” and the 7-minute “Ethereal Connection,” despite the long runtime of the latter, left me checking my watch halfway through, as I felt they dragged on. This was not helped by the surprisingly bland instrumentation, which only made their runtimes feel longer. I did not expect to feel this way, but generally, a lot of the instrumentation on Deadbeat, even on songs I liked, came off as more watered down and one-note than the detailed, washed-out, and hazy soundscapes Tame Impala has created in the past, even on The Slow Rush. Seeing him regress to simpler song structures and instrumentation still confuses me, even when some of them remain catchy and effective. This simplification even applies to some of the lyrics. Parker is no stranger to writing about isolation or rejection (he literally has an album called Lonerism), but lines such as “You’re a cinephile / I watch Family Guy” and “Man, it’s a crisis, I’m never like this / That’s how my life is, you couldn’t write this” seem to just scratch the surface of emotions that Tame Impala has dug much deeper into before.
Another strange criticism for me is that some songs, like “See You on Monday (You’re Lost),” “Oblivion,” and “Ethereal Connection” (again), feel directionless and meandering in their pacing. Despite the more experimental, sprawling song structures Tame Impala has often played with, the lack of direction can make these songs drag, and this has not been a common issue for me with him before. In general, a lot of my criticisms come down to this album just feeling surface-level, which does not stop the poppier tracks from being fun and enjoyable, but results in some forgettable ones, especially when they move further away from pop elements. Overall, despite my criticisms, I am a fan of Deadbeat even if I do not believe it matches Tame Impala’s general standard of quality. I think most of the dance-pop tracks can be very fun and catchy to listen to, but I also think the instrumentation and pacing could have felt more vibrant and exciting as a whole. I can’t deny its catchiness, but as a fan, it can be a confusing record. Even so, I believe Deadbeat is still worth a listen, that you should check it out to form your own opinion, and that I will be playing “Dracula” on repeat on Halloween.
Favorite Songs: My Old Ways, Dracula, Obsolete, End of Summer
Least Favorite Songs: No Reply, Ethereal Connection, See You On Monday (You’re Lost)
