Listener - Time Is A Machine

1. Eyes To The Ground For Change
2. Good News First
3. Not Today
4. Tornadoes
5. I Think It's Called Survival
6. Everything Sleeps
7. There Are Wrecking Balls Inside Us
8. It Will All Happen The Way It Should

My first run in with this band was when I was diving into the deep end of YouTube 3 years ago, searching for post-rock songs/bands similar to Explosions in the Sky and the like. Well this random video I see in corner caught my eye, and a random click later, I was in love with the title track of their album 'Wooden Heart'. It was the most beautiful and honestly written song I had heard at the time and I couldn't stop replaying it. It was something I had never heard before, mixing Indie and Post-Rock with spoken word-poetry lyrics and vocals and I was completely surprised by it. After some serious heartbreak in my life the year before, this was the one and ONLY song that was able to lift me out of myself and from my deeply depressed state I was constantly living in. 'Time is a Machine' is a continuation of this bands great work. No other band I can think of right now writes lyrics so moving, emotional and soul crushing as Listener does. While the instrumentals on this album don't quite line up with what the song 'Wooden Heart' offered it's still just overly solid Indie Rock album. A few songs do slow it down a bit and let us focus more on Dan Smiths unmistakeably unique and straining voice such as 'Tornados', 'Everything Sleeps' and 'There Are Wrecking Balls Inside Us' (of which all 3 are my favorite songs on the album). While a lot of people don't take the vocals very seriously considering it is all in spoken word poetry style, I think it's what makes the band unique in THIS genre even though many newer post-hardcore bands are already implementing the same delivery in their albums. This is just a fantastic album with brilliantly moving and honest lyrics and strong instrumentation.

"There are wrecking balls inside our hearts inside our tongues and they are moving. They're swinging in our thoughts and fists, and they're smashing us together, but that's how we'll make it through. We'll use our hands and legs and guts and chains and turn the ground with shovels and dig up old roots. Unforgiven mistakes our parents made that maybe we’ll make too. Build a fire and hammer out everything that we've obeyed, and make a plow to dig us through." - There Are Wrecking Balls Inside Us

United States, 2013

Indie Rock, Post-Rock, Spoken Word

Website/BUY // ZS