Our first visual impression of Unreal Unearth is the album’s strange cover: a partially excavated human face, surrounded by soil, clamping a flower tight between its teeth. The corpse of Andrew Hozier-Byrne is quite literally pushing up daisies.
Across the Irish singer/songwriter’s body of work, Death has been a frequent muse. Although most people know Hozier for his 2013 hit, “Take Me To Church,” his debut album from the following year is an absolute masterclass in macabre poetry. Songs like “Work Song” describe a love so powerful that it brings a man back from the brink of death: “When my time comes around / Lay me gently in the cold dark earth / No grave can hold my body down / I’ll crawl home to her.” Meanwhile, the Karen Cowley duet “In A Week” chronicles the tale of two dead lovers as they rot and return to the soil together: “They’d find us in a week / When the weather gets hot / After the insects have made their claim / I’d be home with you.”
Morbid? Yes. But the morbidity of nature is Hozier’s specialty. In the song “Shrike,” gory lyrics about a bird impaling its prey on a thorn sound divine when sung in his soothing accented baritone. His vocal range is dynamic; he can switch from soft and sweet to raw and bluesy with ease. Not to mention, his songs are always accompanied by gorgeous instrumentation; from the distorted guitar fuzz on “Jackie And Wilson” to the gentle acoustic finger-picking on “Cherry Wine,” there is a transcendental quality to his music that is hard to find elsewhere.
I mention all of this because, despite the fact that he has never quite emerged from the shadow of “Take Me To Church,” Hozier has been consistently knocking it out of the park since 2013. So how does his third album, Unreal Unearth, stack up against its predecessors?
The album kicks off with “De Selby (Part 1),” a soft, lovely intro featuring three verses sung in English, and an outro sung in Irish Gaelic. Its sister song, “De Selby (Part 2),” is the polar opposite. Similar to “Tell It To My Heart,” Hozier’s 2022 foray into EDM, “Part 2” wouldn’t sound out of place at a nightclub. While Hozier and mainstream pop production may seem like a strange combination, the result is totally electrifying (and the music video features Domhnall Gleeson, which is always a plus).
Once again, Hozier’s lyrical content is rich with meaning and symbolism. There are references to Greek mythology, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and the Bible embedded throughout the tracklist. “First Time” and “Francesca” are notable examples of this, using metaphor and mythology in tandem to great effect. This album also showcases a diversity of genres and styles. “I, Carrion (Icarian)” is a gentle lullaby, “Son of Nyx” is orchestral and unsettling, and “All Things End” is unapologetically gospel. “Unknown / Nth” would sound right at home on Hozier’s grungier 2014 debut, while “Eat Your Young” is biting satire of the older generation’s capitalistic consumption of the youth: “Come and get some / Skinning the children for a war drum / Putting food on the table selling bombs and guns / It’s quicker and easier to eat your young.”
This being said, there is a drawback to the album’s wealth of content. At 16 songs, Unreal Unearth is longer than both Hozier (2014) and Wasteland, Baby! (2019). Across these 16 tracks, there is some fat that could be trimmed. The presence of so many songs that sound similar has a diluting effect on the overall product. The strength of an album like Hozier is its brevity; at only 13 songs, it’s imperative that every song stands out. Maybe a shorter and more concise tracklist would have made songs like “Francesca” even more impactful.
Still, that’s but a small nitpick. Once again, I’m impressed by how much care and artistry Hozier and his band/producers put into their work. This album absolutely gets a positive recommendation from me. If you enjoy bleak fall afternoons, gloomy weather, and thinking about death while drinking tea, you won’t regret unearthing all that Unreal Unearth has to offer.
Matthew Iddon was born at an exceptionally young age. He aspires to one day become old. He currently resides.