Think Like A Key 2026
A gospel and other spells according to a kid with too vivid an imagination and a story which requires a host of angels to spread the word across the land.
Diary Of A Teenage Prophet
There are many ways events can turn for misunderstood students, especially when they adopt the “I have concluded everyone’s stupid” philosophy as this album suggests. A Gerald Bostock scenario may lead to the “Thick As A Brick” rebellion, while a Carrie White circumstance can see a town incinerated. And then we have Bonnie Brown, the titular character of Alex Wroten’s third extravaganza, which takes the themes of artistic struggle and social critique – as explored, respectively, on "The Gatekeepers" and "Nostalgia" – to a church. It’s a story of a cynical girl who survived nuclear war to arrive in the future and be hailed as an unwilling visionary, and such an idea defined the music on display. “Diary” discards the stylistic idiosyncrasies of its predecessors in favor of a more monolithic approach, with fittingly faux madrigals reigning supreme and performers’ bright individuality reined in to serve a higher purpose and provide a depth typical of old icons and comic strips the artworks imitate.
Lyrically dense, almost too theatrical and often orchestral, this record should demand the listener’s undivided attention from the delicate sweep of “High School Overture” which finds Mia Odeleye vocalese reaching for the celestial realm, to the sounds of waves on “Epilogue” which dissolves a piano ripple in silence. However, the doo-wop harmonies of “She’s Just A Regular Teen” – where Wroten’s guitar licks fuel Megan Ennenberg’s delivery of Bonnie’s lines – will enhance, rather than undermine, the solemnity of it all, while the barbershop-quartet grace of “AP Doomsday” will hold the melodic quirks in check. And though Henry Kaiser’s wailing strings help Alex’s hellish riffs on “The End Of Man” emerge cinematically apocalyptic, Duncan Mackay’s ivories assist the composer in rendering “Probably The Afterlife” as jazzy as possible and let Brown’s wonderings wander off on a tangent to reflect on the strangeness of the protagonist’s woes. As John Howard, Peter Daltrey and Keith Smart join in, the things that could seem weird feel quite grounded, so once “The Ancient Vagrant” and “In Matt’s Image” add Hugh Banton’s organ swirl to the aural palette, the latter number also deploying a choir, classic prog motifs come to the fore in full.
Everyone involved is clearly having a whale of a time – or, given BB’s nickname, The Whale – on “She’s Awake!” which swells so intriguingly and pulls the chorale of “Way Too Much Attention” to the surface as well, before “Staying In The Shadows” explores neighboring dimensions via Fernando Perdomo‘s fretboard. Here’s why it’s hardly surprising that Shawn Phillips‘s singing and Ron Geesin’s spoken word on “For The Brown Book Tells Me So” – which Robert Webb’s keyboards color in a psychedelic manner – only augment this sense of finely constructed fun, and when “The Fundamentals” and “She’s Not A Regular Teen” stress the recurrence of some themes, the former applying banjo and lap steel to the otherwise medieval piece, one must wait for Wroten’s cosmic violin on “Beached…” to bring the flight down. Still, the ridiculously divine polyphony of “The Messenger Vs. The Message” and the seriously symphonic oratorio of “To The Ocean!” reveal a different sort of grandeur.
A major opus in a minor key, “Diary Of A Teenage Prophet” might be the apex of Alex Wroten’s creative streak – which leads to a question: how would his new project look if the writer-multi-instrumentalist stripped the embroidery and went for something simple, albeit just as profound?
****1/2
