★★★★★
Artist: Listener (Twitter) (Bandcamp) (iTunes) Title: Time Is a Machine Label: none Release Date: 6/18/13 Reviewer: Carter Fraser Tracklisting: There's not many artists putting out sounds as eccentric as Listener. Self-proclaimed introducers of "talk music," Listener have been riding a wave of relative success following 2010's breakout album Wooden Heart. Fans hail singer, or perhaps, speaker Dan Smith as one of the greatest lyricists of our generation, and it's not hard to see why...
- www.indievisionmusic.com
2013-07-06
★★★★★
Release Date: July 6, 2010 This Group has been around for a while, and unnoticeably taken their poems and turned them into a very different genre. I can honestly say, this band has no one genre, but many and some undetermined. Wooden Heart is a Great Addition to Previous Full Length Entries, and Leads to Brighter Future Entries. The Album Kicks of with "You Have Never Lived, Because You Have Never Died" Breaking out The Banjo, and some creative Description: An Interesting Start to WH ...
- absolutepunk.net
2012-09-17
★★★★★
Listener's performance on Deepspace5's The Night We Called It A Day nearly floored me. Few times had an emcee displayed a level of passion mixed with a thorough knowledge of where he wanted his words to lead and ultimately stand for. What Listener does, and does well, is observe the world that surrounds him, using his Christian roots as a road to understanding and letting his lyrics chronicle his philosophical journeys...
- dustedmagazine.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
The Listener is in a rather compromising position. With underground rap constantly evolving and splintering into immediately intriguing subgenres, the formerly ultra-popular white spoken-word rap movement has lost itself in a less than constructive manner. The lackluster nature of recent releases from previous vanguards Dose One and Sole have proven to cement the negative stigma inherent in the scattershot abstract indie rap arena...
- pitchfork.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
What sounds like the cry of the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team, "The Moon Cries Out" introduces "FYI," a deliberate hip-hop tune that shows Listener's unique delivery and vocal style as featured on Whispermoon. Although the backing vocals resemble monk-like chanting, the tune is a nice opener. The album says this is "American Made Underground Hip-Hop" and the phrase is appropriate. Not as polished or glossy as bigger rap stars, this record has a certain independent aura around it...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-28
★★★★★
There's something so depressing about capable. Listener's debut record for Mush Records is exactly that- extremely talented, promising, capable, good. But nothing more. And should we be asking more? Perhaps this is as good as it gets, something forgettable outside of its genre constrictions, something that conforms exactly to a genre's stereotypes with slight variations that distinguish it, something that's just there...
- www.stylusmagazine.com
2008-07-31
★★★★★
The Listener is in a rather compromising position. With underground rap constantly evolving and splintering
into immediately intriguing subgenres, the formerly ultra-popular white spoken-word rap movement has lost
itself in a less than constructive manner. The lackluster nature of recent releases from previous vanguards
Dose One and Sole have proven to cement the negative stigma inherent in the scattershot abstract indie rap
arena...
- www.pitchforkmedia.com
2008-07-30
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