What made the Beatles great wasn't just their ability to write classic pop songs, nor was it their ability to experiment and get "arty." What made the Beatles great was that they did both things at once. Take "Strawberry Fields Forever." What makes that song so perfect, so legendary is that it is mindblowingly experimental AND catchy as hell. Their untouched ability to craft seamless art-pop is what made the Beatles the Beatles. Ever since "Revolver" was unleashed on the world some of the most successful and critically acclaimed bands have followed in the fab four's footsteps crafting songs that combine experimentation with pop hooks, and consequently creating some of the most hailed recordings of all time. It's a winning approach, after all, because it makes experimentation, and the implicit danger therein, digestible, pushing listeners briefly outside of their comfort zone, (and, it should be noted, setting more than a few on a path toward increasingly abstract music), while also elevating pop songs above their rote verse chorus verse pattern. It's why "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" is a classic album, and why "Sky Blue Sky" blows. It's also why Radiohead are one of the most popular bands on earth. Tame Impala are certainly not the Beatles or Radiohead or classic-era Wilco, but their debut "Innerspeaker," shows plenty of promise, and proves that they know how to seamlessly combine art with pop. The band takes the sound of "Revolver"-era Beatles (a comparison egged on by Kevin Parker's nasal-inflected vocals that call to mind John Lennon) and combines it with elements of "Madchester" bands like the Stone Roses and krautrock. Parker describes the band as "a steady flowing psychedelic groove rock band that emphasizes dream-like melody." That's pretty accurate, but it doesn't really get at how great the songs that comprise "Innerspeak" really are, which is pretty damn great.
Kicking off the album with the spacious and somewhat downbeat "It Is Not Meant To Be," Tame Impala immediately grab the listener with both the familiar and adventurous. Parker's inviting voice soars over a pulsating quasi-shoegaze number that will sound comforting to any fan of 90s britpop. In the background, though, guitars and effects float in and out of the stereo channels rewarding attentive listeners with a cacophony of sound, while the band's secret weapon - drummer Jay Watson - tosses off beats, rolls and fills like they were rain from the sky. Let me state up front that Watson makes this record. Period. His textured beat-driven playing isn't just the band's backbone, it is another instrument entirely.
The band switches things up with the rocking "Desire Be, Desire Go." Fuzzed out guitars matched by Watson's pounding drums give way to a trippy chorus of spiraling fills and reverbed vocals. An instrumental break finds the band going into overdrive as Watson lays down a krautrock beat while the Parker offers up a psyche-damaged guitar solo. Clearly the band is indebted to 70's European psychedelia, but unlike, say Can or Harvester, they never indulge in lengthy experimental workouts, instead keeping all of their songs crisp and succinct. "Desire Be, Desire Go," is a prime example of the band's ability to create heady psychedelia and pack it into perfectly digestible pop nuggets.
Once the listener absorbs these first couple of tracks and connects with the band's addictive hooks and rhythms, the songs start flying by; not because they are fleeting, but because they are as enjoyable and they are hypnotic. Songs like "Alter Ego," "Lucidity," and "Solitude is Bliss," find the band in such a captivating groove that you can't help but "turn off your mind, relax and float down stream." Even instrumental "Jeremy's Storm" will have you swaying your head from side to side while your foot taps out the beat.
Even though the band bury a couple of weaker tracks toward the end of the album, it's very easy to hit repeat on "Innerspeaker" and begin the whole trip over again. For a band just getting started Tame Impala more than impresses. Give them a chance and they'll give you a summer soundtrack of addictive pop-rock songs that actually have depth, which is no small thing.
Wheeler says: "What's this? This I can actually handle."
"Solitude is Bliss"
"Why Won't You Make Up Your Mind"
"Desire Be, Desire Go" w/ "It Is Not Meant to Be" intro live
"Alter Ego"
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