It must be weird to be the Aussie one-man, multi-instrumentalist, producer I can play anything, Kevin Parker— known better as Tame Impala. By dipping your toes in the ’60s psychedelia, you help spawn a new age of indie psychedelic rock with your first two albums, Innerspeaker and Lonerism, two albums that in my opinion, still hold up and have influenced countless other chill indie psych projects. Then you go dark and come back with Currents (that album came out 10 years ago and was truly everywhere), which has you successfully stepping into the indie synth dance scene. Then you get to make music with Quincy fucking Jones and put in the Rolling Stone as one of the most influential musicians of the last 10 years—yeah, they said that once. So having all those accolades, I’m sure it goes to your head.
Tame Impala went for the indie synth dance pop vibe again with 2020s, The Slow Rush, which was really forgettable and bland. Even though my Tame Impala will always be the psych rock freakout wonder, I can at least see the appeal of Currents. The Slow Rush felt super half-baked, and I think I listened to it twice? I can’t name one song on there. And now we have Deadbeat, which, in my opinion, sounds like trippy Ableton garbage. The album title definitely lives up to what we hear: hollow, feckless dribble.
“No Reply” is aptly named—the kind of track that leaves you with nothing, except some of Parker’s worst verse he’s written: “You’re a cinephile, / I watch Family Guy, On a Friday night, off a rogue website,” what the hell is this? A Not much worth remembering. We have to talk about “Dracula,” which sounds like Parker wanted to make a quick ’80s vibed Halloween song. It’s so cheesy and stands out as this crappy, spoooooky paint-by-numbers track, and no other song comes close to being this bad. OK maybe the closer, “End of Summer” wants desperately to be a sun-soaked anthem but ends up sounding like Parker got locked in a Guitar Center mixed with preset synths. There’s just really nothing to pick out as exemplary or even good. That ending 808 beat? I can make that right now with no knowledge of how to use a drum pad… I expected more creativity from the Currents man. And that outro, that super annoying vocal effect. Why?
Deadbeat is a monument to creative bankruptcy, a masterclass in how to squander every ounce of goodwill you’ve ever earned. If he takes five years for another album, Parker had better reset. Cause right now, he’s bottoming out.
