Popcorn Noises

Tame Impala - Innerspeaker

Ah yes, another talked-about record from this year that I’ve been meaning to get to. What’s nice about things working out this way—me not listening to more than a couple Tame Impala songs until the last few weeks—is that I don’t feel any kind of rush to Have An Opinion On It and, furthermore, it seems to fit better with how the album is put together. It’s the kind of thing you can leave in the car stereo (if you’re like me and still burning CDs because your deck doesn’t have an adapter for your iPod) and let spin over and over again, the tracks bleeding into one another and the bookends growing indistinct. This Australian quartet’s take on heavy psych rock seems to waft in from somewhere in the late 60s or early 70s, when hard rock riffage hadn’t yet been codified into stadium gestures and careful use of a wah pedal was one of the easier ways to sound trippy. It strikes me as something John Lennon might have made after the band broke up had he not been, y’know, John Lennon. Of course, Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker sounds and sings just like him, so maybe that reaction is unavoidable.

And anyway, even if their influences are immediately recognizable and their sound easy to pinpoint on the first few listens, they don’t really seem to be gesturing toward history with any kind of tributary agenda. They don’t congratulate themselves for successfully mimicking an older sound (if that makes any sense), so as a listener you never feel like you’re being pandered to. In fact, in the long-standing tradition of psychedelic music, Innerspeaker is an intensely introspective album. The cover’s tunnel-vision image is apt: the drums propel us endlessly forward at the center of the mix with warm snares, splashy cymbals, and jazzy tom fills, while groovy guitars melt and morph at the edges. There are the occasional spacey effects and/or keyboard washes, but the arrangements are generally lean, with just enough grimy fuzz to make the songs muscular. This is not the motionless, dissipating psych of many bedroom tinkerers; it’s relentlessly in motion, flying through the clouded space of Parker’s mind (or yours, if that helps).

Frankly, there are enough magnetic grooves and strong melodies in these songs that plenty of people won’t give a second thought to the lyrics and will still enjoy Innserpeaker just as much. There are, however, some very consistent themes running through the album. Opening track “It is Not Meant to Be” acts as a kind of catalyst for Parker’s journey of warring introspections. “I wanted her / but she doesn’t like the life I lead,” he begins, introducing the unattainable Girl that pops up over the rest of the record, “I must seem more like a friend in need / And I boast that it is meant to be / but in all honesty / I don’t have a hope in hell.” This admission sets off his inner dialog, which runs in an almost bipolar argument of opposing urges. As she sits next to him on “Alter Ego,” he writhes in anxiety about wanting to change to impress her—“You won’t get far telling me you’re all you’re meant to be…get them to love you…they may, depending on your words and wealth”—while knowing deep down that he’s being too hard on himself. He starts getting more and more frustrated with his own instability on “Desire Be Desire Go” (“Dare I face the real world? / Back and forth every day / what’s it for?”), on “Lucidity” (“Come back to me / put all five senses back to where they’re meant to be”), and on “Why Won’t You Make Up Your Mind” (“Am I wasting my time / living in my head?”).

By the time Tame Impala get to “Solitude is Bliss” halfway through the record, Parker’s already had enough of trying to connect with someone (her) and puts his foot down: “Company’s okay / solitude is bliss / There’s a party in my head / and no one is invited.” Of course, overcoming that kind of thing by sheer willpower (or telling yourself you’re better off without her) rarely silences all doubts, especially in rock music. “In all of the universe there is nobody for me,” he moans on “Expectations,” only to undercut himself seconds later: “I told myself I wouldn’t care / but when she said she’d come round I combed my hair.” All of a sudden, we’ve come full circle again. Y’know, when I first heard about this record I assumed that the title had to do with music, like Tame Impala were supposed to be coming out of the loudspeaker inside you (it is, after all, a dynamite headphones album), but once you take a minute to parse out Parker’s monologues, you realize it’s more about dealing with the loneliness and doubt in the back of your mind. It’s not just about the Girl, either—he flies home to see his family near the end and (I think) trips out a couple times along the way—but the voice we hear is always the one deep inside him.