Today, Tame Impala (Kevin Parker) has announced his fifth full-length album, Deadbeat. The record will arrive October 17th via Columbia Records. On it, Parker sculpts a collection of wickedly potent club-psych explorations as a vehicle for some of his most direct, brain-wormy songwriting to date.
The album is deeply inspired by bush doof culture and the Western Australia rave scene, recasting Tame Impala as a kind of future primitive rave act in the process. Yesterday, Parker dropped the single “Loser” along with a music video directed by Kristofski and starring Joe Keery. WATCH HERE. Deadbeat is available for pre-order now HERE. Fans can purchase two web-store exclusive vinyl color-variants available HERE.
Conceived in various locations over the last few years, Deadbeat was largely galvanised between Parker’s hometown of Fremantle and his studio, Wave House in Injidup, Western Australia in the first half of 2025. Deadbeat sounds like the work of an artist with a leveled-up mastery, crafted with a newfound embrace of spontaneity for the renowned perfectionist. How that manifests is a distinct minimalism and crunch, with timbres and textures that add an ineffably new dimension to the sound, as well as a richer, more playful vocal range than ever.
Lyrically, Deadbeat has Parker channelling an endless bummer, a self-deprecating f***-up stuck in a negative feedback loop when he should have long had his shit together. After going macro on The Slow Rush’s (2020) examination of time, Deadbeat focuses on the nuanced minutiae of the emotional quotidian. Dosed in tandem with the music’s euphoric and body-moving urges, Deadbeat pitches raving as self-enquiry, self-medication in lieu of self-care and the kick-on as domestic bliss. Reality can wait another day (or two).
“Loser,” and the album announcement, follow the release of “End of Summer,” a sprawling 7-minute epic, setting the tone for this new dawn of Tame Impala. The track harkens back to the acid house summer of ’89, to free parties of the mid-90s, to bush doofs in outback paddocks – to an imagined history, transmuted into something simultaneously present and eternal, still unmistakably Tame Impala. The track arrived with a short-form visual narrative directed by multi-disciplinary artist Julian Klincewicz. Watch HERE
Kevin Parker has emerged as one of the most influential voices of the last decade. A singular artist renowned for carving out a distinct sound all of his own, Parker crafts transcendent genre-bending sonic landscapes, playing every instrument and acting as writer, producer, mixer and engineer on his projects. He has been nominated for four GRAMMY awards with one win for his collaboration with Justice on 2024’s “Neverender.” In Australia, he’s racked up an impressive 13 ARIA Awards and 27 Nominations. He’s won the BRIT Award for Best International Band and scored nominations for two Billboard Music Awards and an American Music Award. Tame Impala has had numerous US Alternative Radio Top 10 songs including two #1’s for “Lost In Yesterday” and “Is It True.” Tame Impala’s “The Less I Know The Better” is part of the Billionaires Club with over 2 billion streams and the project has racked up numerous gold and platinum certifications globally.
