The Musiquarium

Released: 2025

Genres: Dance Pop, Techno, House, Electronic Dance Music

The Musiquarium’s Deadbeat Review Score: 9 out of 10

After spending half a decade as a producer for pop stars like Dua Lipa (producing most of her album, Radical Optimism), winning a Grammy award with French techno duo Justice on their track Neverender, collaborating with Thundercat (No More Lies), and making the odd soundtrack song for films like Barbie and Dungeons & Dragons, Kevin Parker is finally back where fans have wanted him to be: making a Tame Impala album.

It’s commendable that Kevin Parker has been spreading his artistic wings and indulging in his producer fantasies, but I’ll be honest in saying that I cared very little for any of his side projects he’s worked on since The Slow Rush, outside of maybe Neverender. By forcing himself to collaborate with others, he was leaving his comfort zone as a loner and confronting the challenges of being an introvert, but being an introverted loner is part of what made him so appealing in the first place. Then again, he has claimed that he wants to be “the next Max Martin”.

Following another long five years of waiting (the same amount of time between the last two albums) and now on Sony’s mega-corporate record label, Parker continues to stray further from the psychedelic rock formula that initially brought him attention in the early 2010s, much to the chagrin of fans yearning for a retread of his earlier albums. I was initially worried that his major label debut would result in a neutered Tame Impala album, but Deadbeat wasn’t quite what I dreaded it would be.

Kevin Parker is anything but regressive, and like many great artists, he never does the same thing twice. While Deadbeat more or less continues on with the synthpop trajectory set by Currents a decade prior and still incorporates a subtle neo-psychedelic aesthetic, the flavour of this album is primarily house, techno and dance rock, though it never feels entirely restricted by genre conventions, nor does it feel off-brand for Tame Impala. It’s Parker’s least psychedelic affair, but it still has the sublime production that you’ve come to expect from him.

The album starts with what sounds like a phone memo and some piano chords, before transitioning into an explosive opener on My Old Ways. Here, Parker (now a father, as evident by the cover art) sings of falling into bad habits (new person, same old mistakes), but what are those habits exactly? Do they relate to disillusionment with his domestic life, as his family life growing up was anything but conventional? Is he becoming bored after half a decade of collaborations and is now retreating to the isolation of his Perth studio? Or is it the habit of changing his sound yet again, which will inevitably alienate more fans?

No Reply carries on the themes of introversion and switches up halfway into nothing, but delicate, reverb-heavy piano, evoking the sense and peace of being alone, like a zen garden (or in his case, his Perth studio?). Dracula feels like it could have started as a holdover from Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism and features a playful disco beat, Halloween vibes (à la Michael Jackson’s Thriller) and references to drug kingpins (“I’m Mr. Charisma, fucking Pablo Escobar) — it’s all rather cheesy, but I suppose he is a dad now, after all.

Loser is one of the few songs with guitar in it and finds Parker sinking into self-doubt, despite massive success. According to a recent GQ article, despite being one of the hottest producers of the past decade, Parker still feels like he’s inferior to the other mega-producers around him (imposter syndrome?). He feels like (in his words), a “piece of shit” compared to them. Rather than bask in confidence, his humility shines through his questioning of his own abilities and through self-loathing. Despite this humility, it still feels a bit disingenuous. I make music that no one will probably ever hear, but the Grammy-award winning musician with some of the most popular and acclaimed albums of the past 15 years is the loser? Sure, Kevin…

Oblivion has a bouncy reggaeton beat that’s certain to make old school fans cringe, but it does somewhat evoke a similar sound to that of Reality in Motion, as does Piece of Heaven, a pop song full of airy, heavenly, Enya-like synths. See You On Monday (You’re Lost) is a song without a beat, and instead focuses solely on its synths and Kevin Parker’s voice. These three tracks are by far the poppiest songs on the album and are the weakest songs off of any Tame Impala record, though they still have their charm.

Not My World starts off rather minimalistic until the second half, where Parker flexes his abilities as a DJ, a new venture he has taken on in recent years; it does sound quite stock and reveals some of Parker’s limitations in his new hobby, but it’s not his world after all. Obsolete is bookended with one of the tastiest bass guitar riffs Parker has ever crafted.

Ethereal Connection is the lengthiest composition on the album, and feels like a 12″ extended dance track from the late eighties. The penultimate track, Afterthought, is similar to Dracula, with another funky synth-bass riff. The album closes with End of Summer, which initially set the tone for the album, was also released as the first single from the album. Similarly to Let It Happen, it’s a 7+ minute track that slowly evolves and changes throughout its runtime, though its subject matter differs. Instead of letting go of reservations and trusting your instincts, End of Summer reads to me like an admission that Parker will continue to follow his heart, even if it’s not what his fans want him to do. It’s also one of the best songs on the album.

Many listeners may not embrace the direction of this album and probably feel like Kevin Parker has gone too far in abandoning the psychedelic rock roots that won him over so many fans in the early 2010s, but as long as Kevin Parker makes the music he wants to make (and not the music he’s expected to make), then I suppose that’s better than caving into fan service. With saying that, this is still easily the worst Tame Impala album yet by a long shot, with an uncharacteristically unclear concept, some of his worst lyrics (e.g. the aforementioned Pablo Escobar line, “You’re a cinephile, I watch Family Guy on a Friday night, off a rogue website”, etc.), as well as being the first time where Parker has seemed a bit lost.

None of the songs relate to his daughter and yet she’s on the cover — you’d think this album would be about fatherhood, but it’s mostly a bunch of random pop lyricism, where Parker is casting the largest net possible. Parker also doesn’t go full-on with the house influence, and so the album ends up being a mix of dance pop and house tracks, but this variety kept me interested and made for a dynamic listen at least.

Deadbeat‘s production is unsurprisingly superb, but it’s showing some cracks in Kevin Parker’s armor, such as some truly asinine lyricism, an unclear concept and some weird desire for Kevin to be some pop star. Despite my criticisms, I still really enjoyed Deadbeat more than most Tame Impala fans and it didn’t end up being quite the sellout album I expected it to be, now that he’s with Sony, but sometimes you just want to listen to an album that provides some dumb, mindless, pop fun and Deadbeat does just that. In principle, I want to give this a much lower score, but I just can’t bring myself to doing it.

For credit breakdowns and historic release details, view Tame Impala on Discogs.

Back to the 2025 Album Guide or the Tame Impala Reviews page.

Written by Brett Nippard