Released on 18 August of this year, Unreal Unearth is the latest album from Andrew Hozier-Byrne, the Irish singer best known for his smash hit “Take Me To Church”. An eclectic mix of dark pop, soul, funk, and rock, the new album combines soaring vocals with poetic lyricism and, in a first for the artist, reached number 1 in the UK. It’s been a few months since the release date, but I still haven’t stopped raving about this masterpiece (and I’m writing an article to prove it).
The story behind Unreal Unearth
The concept for this third studio album comes from Dante’s Inferno, which Hozier found himself reading during the lockdown period (as you do). As such, the songs – of which there are a generous 16 – convey a journey through Dante’s nine circles of hell, exploring the sins which put its inhabitants there. The lead single “Eat Your Young”, for instance, revolves around gluttony. As in many of Hozier’s songs, the ‘narrator’ of the track is an unreliable one, who glorifies a culture of instant profit with unsettling cannibalistic undertones.
Meanwhile, “Francesca” – one of my favourites – takes lust as its subject. As Hozier explains on YouTube, for the benefit of avid fans like myself who tend to go down Hozier-themed rabbit holes, the song is based on the story of Francesca da Rimini, a historical figure who fell in love with Paolo, the younger brother of her much older and tyrannous husband. Upon discovery, the lovers are murdered and, according to Canto V of Inferno, condemned in hell to exposure to a violent, blustering hurricane – a metaphor for their soul-shattering lust. In rocky tones, “Francesca” alludes to this with the lyrics, “My life was a storm since I was born / How could I fear any hurricane?”, and in the music video, where flashes of light represent the storm raging outside. Yet, it is not a pained lament so much as a love song, in which Hozier, giving voice to Paolo, sings of how the torturous winds were all worth it for Francesca’s love. He concludes with the profound lines, “I would not change it each time / Heaven is not fit to house a love like you and I.” Literal chills.
Earth and darkness
In keeping with the hellish inspiration for the album, darkness is a major thematic strain throughout. The opening two tracks, “De Selby Part 1” and “De Selby Part 2”, explore this in musically contrasting ways, with the former more subdued and partly sung in Irish and the latter being more funky. The choice of title for these opening tracks is a somewhat niche literary reference to a book called “The Third Policeman”, in which De Selby, a fictional philosopher, theorises that, at night, if one cannot see where one’s hand begins and the darkness ends, then the two literally become the same. Hozier hints at this idea with a seductive twist in lines like, “I’d still know you, not being shown you / I only need the working of my hands.” Never one to shy away from religious imagery – as “Take Me To Church” has shown – Hozier also uses God’s creation of the world out of dark nothingness as a metaphor for the way our imagination fills a void: “But, still, the mind, rejecting this new empty space / Fills it with something or someone / No closer could I be to God / Or why he would do what he’s done.”
The transcendental track “Who We Are” similarly takes up the idea of darkness, as Hozier belts powerfully, “We’re born at night / So much of our lives / Is just carving through the dark / To get so far / And the hardest part / Is who we are / It’s who we are.” This theme continues into the following track, “Son of Nyx”, whose title refers to the Greek goddess of darkness and her son Charon, ferryman of the underworld. Largely instrumental, the song is occasionally interspersed with hints of lines from elsewhere on the album, creating the impression of an echoing lament from the pits of hell. Hozier really is here for the drama.
Hell and darkness are, of course, also connected to earth, the element which appears in the album’s title as well as its cover, which shows Hozier’s grin mostly-buried, a daisy poking between his teeth. The surreal burial scenes in the music video for “De Selby Part 2” refer back to this cover art. In fact, Hozier’s wider discography is dense with such inter-referentiality. For instance, the elemental theme is a cross-album one, with water, rather than earth, appearing on the cover of Hozier’s second album, Wasteland Baby!
My favourite song
My favourite track is “Unknown/ Nth”. As the title implies, it is based on the ninth circle of hell – treachery – but is, first and foremost, a heart-wrenching breakup song. The lines, “Do you know I could break beneath the weight / Of the goodness, love, I still carry for you? / That I’d walk so far just to take / The injury of finally knowing you?” are especially, painfully, impactful. As we can expect from Hozier, the song is peppered with literary allusions, however niche they may be. In Inferno, Satan is hell’s principal prisoner. Trapped in ice, he beats his wings in an attempt to escape, but only succeeds in creating a freezing wind which exacerbates the situation. Meanwhile, in his mouth, he bizarrely chews on the major traitors of the past (okay, Dante). These details make their way into the song in the lyric, “You called me ‘angel’ for the first time, my heart leapt from me / You smile now I can see its pieces still stuck in your teeth,” and so on.
Hozier in live performance
Hozier’s international “Unreal Unearth Tour” is still ongoing. I was lucky enough to secure a ticket for a reasonable price (in my view, when compared to other artists) of £45, in the fairly small-scale, outdoor venue of The Piece Hall, Halifax. I can confirm that Hozier’s voice is just as spellbinding – and, if possible, even more so – in person. Hearing “Francesca”, “Unknown”, “Take Me To Church” and “Would That I” (the list goes on) live was an incredible experience.
Any criticisms?
As this article has shown, Hozier’s literary references are really quite niche, to the extent that they are not always easily identifiable. Critical opinion has been somewhat divided as to whether this makes Hozier a lyrical genius or a little exhausting and pretentious. In regards to the latter point, while (dare I say it) perhaps valid on some level, I do think these critics miss the fact that Hozier himself subtly acknowledges this. In “First Time”, his philosophical reflections are followed by a gently mocking “anyway”, offering a hint of comic relief: “To share the space with simple living things / Infinitely suffering, but fighting off like all creation / The absence of itself… anyway.”
Perhaps my only real complaint about the album is the fact that “Swan Upon Leda” – a poignant feminist retelling of Zeus’ rape of Leda in the context of the overturning of Roe vs. Wade in the US – is missing from the album. Though released as a single in 2022, it remains strangely absent. Is it meant to be taken as a standalone?
Conclusions
Although it’s a brilliant song, Hozier should not only be known for “Take Me To Church”. Unreal Unearth is worthy of attention in itself, with its dark, earthy tones making it perfect to listen to this autumn (or any time of year, for that matter). While Hozier’s fans may jokingly describe him as a nymph emerging from a forest, in Unreal Unearth, it is a voice from the pits of hell that reaches us. This makes for an intense and surreal listening experience through a plethora of songs that are, truly, unreal.