2LP
Universal Music Group (2022) AU
Sonically Lonerism is a quantum leap forward for Tame Impala, the seeds of which were sown shortly after the mixing of Innerspeaker had been completed. Again recorded and produced almost entirely by Kevin Parker in studios, planes, hotels and homes around the world, and mixed by the trailblazing Dave Fridmann, it's a sound not so much reinvented as completely redrafted and stretched way, way out.
Lonerism's most apparent advance is in it's synthesizers, there's swathes of them cutting melancosmic shapes across almost every track. There's still the searing guitar lines, bouldering drums, free bass and of course Parker's voice, but now there's heavily mournful pads and sunshine lead lines from an army of analogue explorers in the mix. The songwriting is as joyously screwy as ever. Songs swerve when you expect them to duck, and turn themselves inside out when you expect them to straighten out, there's so many melodic curveballs it's dizzying. And it's a heady, heady record for all the loners, lyrically sweet and casual, relaxed but at times deadly serious, and oddly, deeply amorous.
Lonerism is one loner standing staring at an expansive moonscape of psychedelic song, but it's so unpretentiously evocative and transcendental it's for everyone to enjoy.