Listener: Wooden Heart

            Dan Smith (aka the frontman of the “talk music” project Listener) is a surprising success story.  The first time I saw him was at a small café in a small Midwestern town.  I distinctly remember thinking that his music would never catch on.  Three years and almost 40,000 Facebook fans later, I’m delighted to be proven wrong.  After beginning his career in hip-hop, Listener seems to have discovered his true strength in a roots/rock/folk/spoken word medium perfected in his latest album Wooden Heart.

            Literature buffs will be interested to know that Wooden Heart is inspired by The NeverendingStory by Michael Ende.  It’s inspiration may be a fantasy, but the album could not feel more earthy.  Smith’s ability to evoke empathy is at its strongest in “Seatbelt Hands” which tells the story of a person most of us would simply dismiss as a “failure.”  The themes in “You Were a House on Fire” will be familiar to everyone who has struggled to help a hurting friend: “Let’s not talk about the weather/ And whether or not there’s really rain in the clouds/ Unless you want to know if I feel the same as you/ It’s more measuring up than just wasting time/ But time is not on our side, you’re burning/ Rain would only be a temporary fix/ And there’s just no place right now for cute ironies like that anymore.” All of the songs on Wooden Heart are so emotionally heavy  that if would feel overdone, if not for Smith’s sometimes overwhelming sincerity.  The album’s spirit is to deeply rooted in the working class ethos to be postmodernist.  Perhaps the last lines of the last song capture its message best, “Save up your hopes friends/ And send them to the corners of your end/ There is something coming, and everything matters/ Guard your heart, and watch the wind.”

            Listener is much easier to understand when approached as poetry set to music.

Stream the full album on Bandcamp (lyrics included), or watch an Audiotree performance.