Today, Tame Impala has announced his fifth full-length album, Deadbeat. The record will arrive on October 17, through Columbia Records and on it, Impala sculpts a collection of wickedly potent club-psych explorations as a vehicle for some of his most direct and brain-wormy songwriting to date. The album is deeply inspired by bush doof culture and the Western Australia, rave scene recasting Impala as a kind of future primitive rave act in the process.

Conceived in various locations over the last few years, Deadbeat was largely galvanized between the artist’s hometown of Fremantle and his studio, Wave House in Injidup, Western Australia, in the first half of 2025. The album 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 Impala channelling an endless bummer, a self-deprecating fuck-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.

Photo Credit: Kalyn Oyer