Throughout Inner Speaker, Tame Impala unabashedly bares the existential ideas motivating many of their mosh-danceable songs. Yes and Iron Butterfly make themselves manifest in the modern context of the album’s second track, “Desire Be Desire Go,” prescribing a combination of heavily overdriven guitar timbres grinding behind the swirling sustain of an organ and driving, heavily struck drums. A twice-repeated interlude sends listeners’ heads into vibration with thick, rich vocal harmonies, cascading drum fills, and a midrange-heavy bass tone that resonates somewhere between the ears and nostrils. The purpose-probing lyrics “Every day/Back and Forth/ What’s it for” launch the song’s level of introspection to new heights, flinging the unsuspecting music enthusiast into a soul wandering solo flight.

Expounding and expanding upon the beauty of personal perspective and commenting on the subjectivity of the human experience, “Solitude is Bliss” proclaims “You will never come close to how I feel.” The self-determined isolation described in the reverberating lyrics finds a place in the chorus’ distinctly punctuated instrumental accompaniment. Leaving the final beat of each measure wide open, Kevin Parker and Dominic Simper (guitar and bass, respectively) provide “space around [the listener] where [their] souls can breathe.”

Dave Fridmann, who has worked with digital-age groups like MGMT and The Flaming Lips, helped Tame Impala to mix the rough tracks, sharing the responsibility in creating a meditative album that, according to band members, is “basically all about the feeling.” Without a trace of the pounding four-on-the-floor kick drum pervading contemporary dance music, Innerspeaker is more geared towards supplying a stimulating soundtrack to strolling the reaches of the imagination.