Album Review: Deadbeat by Tame Impala

Deadbeat is a brave document of burnout and relapse, offering candid glimpses into Kevin Parker’s psyche and refreshing production choices.

Courtesy of Columbia Records.

Kevin Parker’s latest record isn’t a psychedelic carnival or a kaleidoscopic escape. Deadbeat opens on a quiet image of the artist himself—alone in his Fremantle studio in the middle of the night, surrounded by humming machines, guitar pedals, and half‑built loops that only he will ever hear. It feels less like mythmaking than maintenance. In an interview with the Klein/Ally Show, released during the promotion, Parker confessed that releasing an album is chaotic and that he tries “to hold on for dear life and get through this very difficult time.” That fatigue permeates every corner of Deadbeat. The highly anticipated record casts him as “a self‑deprecating fuck‑up stuck in a negative feedback loop,” and the music leans into that harsh self‑assessment.

“My Old Ways” is the emotional overture that frames the record. Over warm, analog‑textured synthesizers and a drum pattern that slouches forward, Parker admits that he has gone back on vows he thought were sacred: “I said never again, temptation/Feels like it never ends.” His falsetto is both vulnerable and resigned as he repeats the hook, “Back into my old ways again.” The verses are full of self‑reproach (“Swore that I would never go back but just this once”), but what lingers is the chorus’s cyclical pull—Parker’s voice stacking on itself like layers of an intrusive thought. The bridge’s line “Always fucking up” is notable because Tame Impala’s earlier records rarely let profanity puncture their psychedelia. Here, it feels like Parker doesn’t trust ornamental language to convey frustration. He chooses bluntness over oblique poetry. Even his production, still lush, embraces hiss and slightly warped timing. The synths wheeze rather than sparkle, matching lyrics that depict relapse as both humiliating and inevitable.

That tension between self‑awareness and surrender carries into “Loser,” a single that opens with Parker noting his unraveling (“So much for closure, I lost composure”). It quickly moves toward the chorus, where he sings “I’m a loser, babe… Do you wanna tear my heart out?” The phrasing feels intentionally adolescent; Parker knows the word “loser” is simplistic, yet the second verse suggests that desperation has become his default: “Desperate times call for desperate measures/I fell into ya, I fell into ya.” Though the track has a groove, the synths sag slightly, as if burdened by the sentiment. The song brings some of Parker’s most evocative imagery: he leaves alone to roam dark streets and breathe night air, yet even this release is colored by failure (“I don’t know why I didn’t fight it/I probably tried and magnified it”). Unlike earlier Tame Impala songs, where personal crisis is masked by swirling instrumentation, here the production accentuates the lyrics’ self‑deprecation. The song’s structural repetition showcases the idea that returning to harmful habits can feel hypnotic.

While “Loser” punches downward, “Obsolete” explores insecurity through quiet pleading. Its opening lines (“Talk is cheap but the words cut deep/Promises get old, they get hard to keep”) sound like an exhausted mantra rather than a bristling accusation. Parker asks, “Do you want my love? Is it obsolete?” conflating emotional obsolescence with technological disuse. The hook’s repetition of “Do you want my love? Is it obsolete?” suggests he has been ruminating on that question to the point of neurosis. In the second verse, he’s already talking like a break‑up has happened (“Saying things like, at least we had some fun… I guess we met too young”), a tactic that reveals his fatalistic mindset. Even the bridge—“Just tell me what is up… You’re playing with my love”—feels less like a plea for clarity than a resignation. The production matches the lyrics with a gently pulsing groove and soft synth layers; the airy textures leave space for the words to sink in. If Parker’s earlier records perfected immaculate layering, Deadbeat embraces negative space. He allows beats to breathe and refrains from filling every bar, which makes the self‑doubt in “Obsolete” all the more inevitable.

Parker’s self‑deprecation turns outward into mythic isolation. “Dracula” uses vampire imagery not for melodrama but to illustrate his aversion to the daylight world. “Daylight makes me feel like Dracula” is as close to a metaphor as he allows himself, and it’s telling that he chooses a figure cursed by immortality. The chorus instructs us to “Run from the sun like Dracula”; the repetition becomes almost comical, yet it hints at exhaustion. He fluctuates between anonymity and overcompensation: he is hiding when morning light turns blue, yet boasts about being “Mr. Charisma, fuckin’ Pablo Escobar.” Friends tell him to get in the car, but he just wants to be wherever his lover is, no matter how isolating that place might be. The track’s thick bassline and disco‑leaning groove recall Currents, but the energy is restrained. The chorus recedes, and the repeated “Run from the sun” becomes less a command than a weary ritual. It’s as if Parker is lampooning his own escape into nocturnal hedonism. That gloss contrasts sharply with how the song feels within Deadbeat: on the album, the sheen highlights how far Parker is from feeling truly alive.

“Oblivion” deepens the theme of escape by placing Parker at the edge of disappearance. The verses imagine a distant, unreachable connection: “It’s so far away… I try to reach you”, and later, “If I don’t get to you, my love… Then I choose… oblivion”. The song’s structure is minimal: short verses give way to elongated vocal loops where he repeats “I’ll love,” slowly fading into the ether. The production builds from airy synth pads to denser waves, but there’s no crescendo. Instead, Parker cycles through the same melodic phrases, capturing the feeling of trying to hold onto something that’s slipping away. The line “I don’t want to go to oblivion” repeated in the outro sounds less like a refusal and more like an admission that he can’t control where he’s going. The track’s emptiness stands in contrast to earlier Tame Impala epics, and the choice feels deliberate. He refuses to chase transcendence and instead documents the slow descent into emotional stillness.

The album’s midsection offers brief glimpses of respite without promising redemption. “Not My World” captures dissociation with a deceptively light melody. Parker sings about walking down streets and floating, only to realize by the chorus that “Day after day… Wakin’ just in time to catch the last hour of sunlight” and concluding with a resigned hook: “It’s not my world”. The repeated phrase becomes a coping mechanism; by declaring his detachment, he frees himself from expectations. The track’s soft drum groove and dreamy synths reinforce the sense of isolation without resorting to melodrama. What’s striking is how little relief he offers—there’s no shift into a major key, no soaring bridge. Instead, the instrumental break swirls in place before returning to the mantra “It’s not my world.” The song’s restraint reads as honesty rather than monotony.

“Piece of Heaven” finds Parker momentarily transfixed by domestic contentment. “This room is a shambles… To you it’s untidy, maybe/To me, it’s divine,” he sings, sounding almost surprised by his own comfort. He locates a “small piece of heaven” in someone’s bedroom and confesses, “Whatever I’m missing out on… In here, I don’t care.” The lyrics are simple and direct, almost to a fault. The hook repeats the word “heaven” to a degree that might seem cloying, but within the context of Deadbeat, the lack of irony registers as vulnerability. Parker is tired of chasing transcendence through sound design; here, he is content to sit in a messy room with a partner and momentarily shrug off the outside world. The production mirrors that intimacy with close‑miked vocals and gentle synth pads; there is none of the towering reverb that defined his previous records. It’s a welcome breather that underscores the record’s cyclical nature: he moves from relapse to solace and back again.

“Ethereal Connection” edges toward sincerity. Parker admits, “I don’t believe in magic/All the harder that I try,” yet finds something ineffable in the relationship he describes. The melody is airy, and he allows the phrase “Take a ride/Say goodbye” to drift without anchoring it with explicit meaning. The song’s brevity and repetitive structure could make it feel like filler to some, yet it functions as a palate cleanser before the album’s final stretch. It shows Parker wrestling with the idea of faith—whether in love, creativity, or something beyond—and not quite committing to any of it.

“See You on Monday (You’re Lost)” brings back a sense of anxiety. The verses depict social interactions that feel performative—“Someone’s staring, but please don’t call me that”—and the hook is an admonition: “Life ain’t too much fun when there’s no telling where you’ll end up.” The repeated refrain “You’re lost” echoes like a scolding and could be aimed at both a lover and at Parker himself. The production drifts along with synths and gentle guitar melodies, but there is an undercurrent of unease; the song circles back to its starting point, reinforcing the album’s theme of repetition as punishment.

“Afterthought” is perhaps the album’s most straightforward breakup song, and it reveals how Parker’s self‑deprecation metastasizes into self‑pity. He complains, “You only call me to drive you to safety/But you never stay,” and the hook has him offering to be “emotional if you need me to,” as if willing to contort himself into whatever shape might grant him approval. He laments, “No matter what I do/I’m an afterthought to you.” The structure verges on repetition, but it accentuates the cyclical trap at the heart of the record. The production is delicate, with his vocals floating over soft electronic beats. Unlike Parker’s older songs that would smuggle pain into a danceable groove, here the production refuses to distract. It forces him to sit with his humiliation.

The album ends with “End of Summer,” the longest track and its most ambiguous (and one of the best songs of the year). The verses are straightforward confessions: “Everybody knows how I feel about you/So you can act surprised if you need to” and “I waited till the end of summer, and I ran out of time.” The chorus acknowledges that Parker can seem uncaring because his words don’t come easily, and then the song drops into an extended instrumental section built around a pulsing kick drum and synth arpeggios. He repeats “Do it on my own/Goin’ through it on my own” as if convinced that solitude is both a choice and a necessity. The track feels like a summary of the album’s tension between relapse and renewal: he longs for connection yet accepts that he might have to move through the world alone. There is no cathartic resolution, only the sense that the cycle will continue.

All that said, Deadbeat offers a portrait of an artist who knows his strengths and chooses to subvert them, where previous Tame Impala albums built labyrinthine sonic landscapes, Deadbeat strips back the layers. The production choices—deliberate distortion, looser timing, extended silences—mirror the mental state Parker depicts in his lyrics. Even the more dance‑oriented tracks feel weighed down by their subject matter; the grooves never quite take off, which seems intentional. The record is often moving, and its candor is admirable. Parker’s decision to repeat certain hooks to the point of numbness effectively illustrates cyclical habits, but it occasionally veers into monotony (which doesn’t detract from the ongoing theme). Certain songs feel underwritten, more sketches than fully realized compositions. But when he focuses on specific details—the shame or the quiet domesticity—the songs gain depth.

The album’s strength lies in its cohesion. Instead of assembling disparate moods like previous Tame Impala records, Deadbeat sustains a singular emotional tone. This consistency can be both its virtue and its limitation. The admiration for his technical mastery remains; his ability to craft textured synths and imaginative drum programming is still evident. Yet the point of Deadbeat seems to be less about sonic perfection and more about letting imperfections show. These choices align with the record’s themes: exhaustion, self‑awareness, and reluctant rebirth.

Great (★★★★☆)

Favorite Track(s): “My Old Ways,” “Loser,” “Piece of Heaven”