Think Like A Key 2024
The Rhymer In The Long-Tongued Room
From palavers of birds to fluttering of butterflies, maven of English psychedelia marries poetry to melody.
Playing with the notion of color has always been Peter Daltrey’s forte, from KALEIDOSCOPE and FAIRFIELD PARLOUR onwards – or, rather, inwards, because the veteran’s solo oeuvre is both a source of and an outlet for his soul-searching, and that’s why psychedelic stylings served him so well over the years. An elder statesman now, the Londoner may also constantly seek new methods to express his attitude with regard to tempora and mores, so while Daltrey’s 2023 offering "The Leopard And The Lamb" shone a light in the gloom of our world, its follow-up goes further to feel fresher, if equally reflective. Inspired by a Dylan Thomas line which became this album’s title, Peter created a series of moving pictures to lead his followers into a literary realm where tunes serve words in the most resonant way.
Vibrant in terms of sound, the artist’s voice booming among largely acoustic arrangements, and of semantics, there are, as he put it, less obvious, more introspective songs with some humor thrown in to lift the mood. Such an approach required, first and foremost, to elevate the harmonica-helped “Nothing Ever Seems To Rhyme” above the mortality-assessing darkness in which the ghost of another Dylan, Bob, is hiding – yet the atmospheric “Magda Bruer In The Rain” opens an orchestral window outward to let the whole world into Daltrey’s microcosm. This piece provides an exit for what the effects-drizzling “Geranium Rain” begins with a gentle and optimistic, albeit just as nostalgic, paean to poetry, before the solemn “Give Me Your Tune” engages Peter’s tone-deep vocals in marrying creative momentum to intimate moment only to see “Angelina” lose eloquence in favor of symphonic passages. Still, the scarcity of lyrics here will be compensated for in the mischievously unhurried “Mr. Nice” by a half-spoken storyline, and in the luminously fragile “The Bird-Hearted Man” that adds folk sensibility to the album’s riveting imagery.
However, whereas the groovy, grassroot-minded “Green Tea” takes a field trip to lysergic memories, and the delicately spaced-out “The Moon Fell” brings reverberating specters to restful reverie, “Bethlehem” is simply mesmeric in its bleak grandeur, and “These Chelsea Butterflies” finds an exquisitely exciting, but heartbreaking, manner to reminisce about the events which happened aeons ago and invites the listener to revisit past thrills on the way underground. This is the destination the songs of “The Rhymer” explore, in turn eagerly and reluctantly – yet always profoundly.
****4/5
