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. Having such strikes against his character from the outset, The Listener's debut solo record, Whispermoon, begins fighting against preconception at its outset and closes with less than satisfactory results.
Comparisons to his influences are obvious from his opening prose. Standing as a vocal amalgam of MacLethal and Alias, instant issues arise from his monotone delivery and a low vocal mix reminiscent of early Qwel on most tracks. Lyrically, The Listener is Sole without the charisma, hurling word salad manifestos about conversation with train station vagrants, underground financial hierarchy and the importance of metaphorical doors with little variation or impressive metaphors. His delivery tends to be a little dry and awkward, but his conceptual balance helps to equalize any issues you may have with his vocals. Simply put, The Listener is more slam poet than emcee.
The saving grace of Whispermoon is its varied production. Instead of struggling over abstract drum arrangements or harsh synth lines, The Listener gets his message across best through rock-solid mid-90s boom-bap and modern sample tricks. Handled mainly by Dust and Gruntwork, the production varies from the distant horn and stuttered strings of "You're So Underground" to the sunny guitar, high vocal sample and curled bassline of "Train Song" to the wind chimes, whirling synth and lonely piano of "Ways of the Wind", utilizing a dark palette of sounds for both ambient and diamond-hard purposes.
While housing a couple poorly sequenced beats and several pointlessly esoteric displays of poetic lyricism, The Listener manages to entertain on many levels, displaying obvious talent that, if centered across a similar style of incredibly subtle backdrops with more focused verse structure and a deeper portfolio of rhyme schemes, he could be held in the highest esteem of a relatively uninteresting facet of underground hip-hop. It's his potential to develop a sound that attracts artists from various schools of hip-hop that makes for a bright future in the world of abstract introspective rap.
