***** After the phenomenal success of "Innerspeaker", Tame Impala had a massive level of expectation with a follow up. This was made more critical as they had since achieved worldwide notoriety, and were no longer another one of Australia's hidden secrets. After listening to both albums several times, I can safely say that Lonerism not only satisfies as a follow up, but outdoes its predecessor!<br><br>Much like "Innerspeaker", there's a theme of isolation present on the album. Interestingly, with the songs "Apocalypse Dreams" & "Elephant", this is the first time that Kevin Parker has shared writing credit on any of their releases. <br><br>"Lonerism" I think is more adventurous than "Innerspeaker". The latter tended to blend in the same sound a bit, but "Lonerism" explores further territory with its soundscape. The production quality is stepped up, and now finds more of the hooks in the music rather than the lyrics. This could be a problem because a quick scan of "Innerspeaker"'s tracklisting quickly reveals to me which song is which, whereas for "Lonerism", it's not as immediately obvious. On the other hand, once I do listen to them, it becomes immediately obvious (eg the opening riff on "Endors moi".<br><br>I'm loving how much international praise they're getting for this album and just hope they can keep it up because this album is great! |