Innerspeaker
by Tame Impala

There is an obvious amount of potential displayed on Innerspeaker, but it never quite blossoms into something exceptional. Things I love: the garage-y production, the round fuzzy guitar tone, the meat-and-potatoes drumming, and the love it shows to classic psychedelic rock. Things that hold this album back: unfocused songwriting, mundane robotic vocal inflections, and an overall lack of variety. The most forgettable tracks here just sort of drift through aimless chord progressions and melodies with no discernible emotion being expressed. That being said, there's enough here to excite me for the rest of Tame Impala's catalogue.

A wonderful odyssey that seems like humble beginnings for Tame Impala and showed that there was potential to dominate the decade.

From VictorVale 10/16/2022 11:58 | #290523

Além dos ótimos efeitos, a base de som é demais!

Very solid album. Really easy to listen to. Not quite as good as Lonerism but still a very good album. My highlights are It Is Not Meant To Be, Solitude Is Bliss and Desire Be, Desire Go. Solitude Is Bliss also contains one of my favourite lyrics of all time - "There's a party in my head, and no one else is invited".

A great album. Some say "lo-fi", but in fact this sounds unreal through a good stereo, and the apparent raw, murky sound becomes surprisingly clear when in the right headspace. Innerspeaker is the most cohesive when compared to all Tame Impala albums. IMO Lonerism collectively is equally as brilliant but doesn't have the cohesiveness. If anything this suffers from being a debut album (their EP aside) but it shows the music was already highly evolved (Parker and co. formed back in 2005) and very genuine. Easy to accuse this of sounding like it was a throwback to the psych rock of the 60s/early 70s, but in fact I believe this is very fresh and original. No doubt draws from some great influences of that era, but to me this is like a rebirth of psych rock.

This album demonstrates that the group knew their style right from the start and have created and grew on that sound ever since. This is the starting point and is a very good first record but does fall short compared to their later work. There are several great songs that have some amazing guitar moments which creates a great prog rock song. However, some of the tracks do lack substance and feel a little bit empty. I think this is due to inexperience and it is an issue they resolve on later releases. Overall, a great modern prog rock records that is well worth a listen to see the origins of an artist.

From teague 09/18/2021 17:23 | #273895

Fairly good first effort, I'd say. It's a bit watered down most of the time though. The Bold Arrow of Time and I Don't Really Mind were the two that really stood out to me.

From Timestarter 06/24/2020 10:30 | #254385

Fav. Tracks: Desire Be Desire Go, Alter Ego, Solitude Is Bliss, Exceptation.

Loved this album with my first listen and to this day, love it even more! When I see comments about Tame Impala albums, this one is the least talked about, yet for me hands down, it's the best one.

95/100

Every Song is good and beyond, tame impala best Band/artist of the decade