Kevin Parker, the musical genius behind “Tame Impala,” has returned with his first new album in five years, with his last album “The Slow Rush” releasing in 2020. Parker went in a new direction with this album, incorporating the genres of House, Dance-Pop as well as EDM into his usually Psychedelic and Alt-Pop sound.
Three songs were released before the album as singles, with the first being, “End of Summer” this song gave listeners a first taste of the House incorporated style, and it was received fairly well as hype for the album began to grow. The album stays consistent in it’s House and EDM style with Parker’s psychedelic roots showing within each song, but the album fails in a few different aspects.
The songs relatively stay the same and hardly progress outside of the addition of maybe a hi-hat or a drum fill with some included bass. These songs are pretty long, but nothing in these pieces justify the runtime.
The point of electronic music is for the evolution of the track to take center stage, and Parker fails to do that here on most tracks. Where he does succeed however is in the songs “No Reply”, “Dracula”, “End of Summer”, as well as “Afterthought”.
The album is well mixed and there was an excellent choice of drum patterns, but it gets fairly stale after a while. The album feels like a cheap attempt into adding a dance inspired vibe to the usual psychedelic sound Parker has done so well, and it hardly works at all. When it does, it’s great. The highs are high and the lows are sluggishly low, which ruins a bit of the experience especially when I expect a lot out of a Tame Impala project because of how quality Parkers work has been in the past.
The most underdeveloped songs on this album aren’t specifically terrible, just mind-numbingly boring. The worst offenders in this regard are the songs “Ethereal Connection” and “See You On Monday (You’re Lost)”. There is absolutely no need for a song to be seven minutes long if it is not going to progress or go anywhere, and that is exactly what “Ethereal Connection” is. “See You On Monday (You’re Lost)” is a nearly four-minute track of Parker singing over some chords, which is completely pointless and kills the momentum that was being built by the past couple of songs. A track like that should be at the end of the album, to slow down all of the momentum that the rest of the track list has built. It is also a mediocre song in general, so no matter where it ended up on the track list, it probably would have killed any attempted energy built by the previous songs.
However, there are some absolutely wonderful tracks on this album, the best of which being “Dracula”. The song is very well executed in terms of production, as the beat flows effortlessly as Parkers vocals glide across the song. It is a groovy, fun take on Dance-Pop and is a standout on the album.
Another great highlight of the album is “Afterthought,” another song going deeper into Dance-Pop rather than the other EDM inspired tracks. The bassline on this song is one of the best parts of the track, fitting in perfectly with the erratic and fast drum pattern. The potential for this album to be great was there, but most of the album feels underdone and boring in comparison to a few tracks here and there.
Overall, “Deadbeat” is a failing attempt into venturing into the House and EDM genre for Tame Impala. While the album has some very enjoyable moments, the rest outside of that is very boring and hardly progresses.
The potential for this project to be great was certainly there, and the singles felt promising, but in the end this album was a disappointing attempt at EDM infused Alt-Pop.
