The opening track, It's Not Meant To Be reminisces the hazy, wah rhythm guitar that opens Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, The Small Faces' 1967 hit album. And the sixties references continue through the record. Kevin Parker's whispered, dreamy vocals gasp 'Sitting around, smoking weed,' and the image of a smoky, 1960s bedroom springs to mind immediately.
The lyrics to the opening track are that of admiring a girl and boasting that, 'It is meant to be,' however in reality, the narrator doesn't, 'Have a hope in hell.' It's a situation that many a teenager can relate to, and so can I.
Track 2 is the fuzzy, slightly heavier guitar number, 'Desire Be, Desire Go' which leads us into the equally fuzzy (and trippy!) numbers 'Alter Ego' and 'Lucidity.' We land at Track 5, 'Why Won't You Make Up Your Mind?' In a haze of guitars and synthesisers, Parker's voice breathes the title line along with 'Give me a sign' and not much else. In it's simplicity, the message of confusion by a lover is drilled in harder than by a long, well-thought out piece of poetry. Again, the complexity of love and relationships latches onto the listener, it's what makes this album so, so relatable.
The short and simple piece follows into the wah masterpiece that is 'Solitude Is Bliss'. As Parker croons, 'You will never come close to how I feel,' the song becomes a loner's anthem. The positive vibe that bellows through the whole song makes being alone feel oh so great. The reference to LSD in the lyric, ' There's a party going on in my head, and there's nobody else invited' once again links the band back to their 60s influences.
The instrumental 'Jeremy's Storm' delivers exactly what it promises. Violent dissonance in certain parts of the song really do throw you into the storm. This launches you into 'Expectation', which, I doubt unintentionally, is a track that you begin to expect from this album. It must be made perfectly clear however, that describing it as an album track means it no disrespect. Every song on this album is as good as another, and the standard is incredibly high.
'The Bold Arrow of Time' leaves you somewhere between Jimi Hendrix, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Zero7. The driving riff mixes 'Voodoo Child' and 'Spread Your Love' and Parker's cloudy vocal kicks in again.
The album finishes with the loud and layered 'Runway, Houses, City, Clouds' before 'I Don't Really Mind.'
Every single track on this album can compete with another. The lyrics that owe much to heartbreak and loneliness add meaning to the notoriously nonsense genre of psychedelia. Tame Impala went on to create Lonerism which may well be featured in the future. The debut record put Australia on the 'cool' music map, like an industrially-booming China, where Peter Andre and Kylie Minogue were drawn as Turkmenistan and Andorra.
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