Andrew doubles down on his Irish roots with a folk-infused pop record denoting visionary landscapes of his Wicklow hometown through hauntingly beautiful vocals.

---

overview

When Irish solo singer Andrew Hozier-Byrne recorded his debut single, Take Me To Church in the attic of his parent’s house in Wicklow, no one expected the sheer surge he would amass in such a short space of time; least of all him.

Now, ten years later, we still see his music rooted deep into the soils of Irish heritage and location; undiminished by his apparent “claim to fame”. Apart from his music, the most lovable trope about Andrew is that he’s kept true to himself, untethered by his rising stardom that would have seemingly changed everyone else – often resulting in buying out multiple complexes in central London and never actually staying in them. But there he still resides in his quaint little Irish town of Wicklow in the Republic of Ireland. Perhaps it is this undeterred admiration for his home country that has allowed him to remain brazen and steadfast in the company of those waiting for his next big thing. He simply writes want he wants to write that is so close to his heart. What followed his 2014 debut album was a meteoric shift in folk indie and coffee house playlists as number ones were met across both sides of the Atlantic aswell as a cheeky Grammy-nomination thrown in. What followed some time after was a deep-dive into the world as we see it – Wasteland, Baby! in 2019. Perhaps a literal commentary on our little rock, it saw a more experimental approach to his music – veering away from the consumerism-friendly antics of his first.

SONG-TO-SONG

This year, we see him head up a new fronteir – Unreal Unearth – as his curiosity about the world remains undiminished in a new bold look at Hozier as an artist. The first parters of De Selby is a whimsical masterclass in folklore of acoustics in equal measure before it kick starts into a gutsy bass line. First Time is a right beauty of soaring violin placeholders and high-end vocals in a tiz while pre-single of Francesca and sultry-shock Eat Your Young reminds us of the supercharged anthemic writing brought from the first, like From Eden and Work Song. There’s enough buttery ballads on this 16-track runthrough to have you crooning like a leaf in the dead of Autumn. I, Carrion (Icarian) is a weightless overview while Who We Are is a shaken outcry similar to of the pouring rise in Movement on his second – “We’re born at night / So much to the lives / Is just carvin’ through the dark,” or better yet, a fleeting resemblance of Jackson’s Earth Song, a poignant tale on the damage we do to the world’s neighbours we choose to co-exist with.

The only collaboration that Andrew pulls on to his project this time around, is the sweetening notes of Brandi Carlile, which was seemingly kept quiet until the actual release date last Friday. An alluring personification of honeyed vocals and bright melodies brings in the second act of the album – an apparent turn for the worst. Son of Nyx is haunting soundtrack eclipsed with an operatic telling encroached with All Things End, a mutual feeling of love fading – “If there was anyone to ever get through this life / With their heart still intact, they didn’t do it right. The last time I felt your weight on my chest, you said … “We didn’t get it right, but love, we did our best.” Sorrowful love is Andrew’s unduly MO and it appears here in bucketloads. Without much resistance from us as fans, mind.

The bold To Someone From A Warm Climate (Uiscefhuaraithe) is another nod to his home country, seeped in piano raindrop-notes and unduly empathy from Andrew’s falsetto, while Anything But brings another accolade to Andrew’s easy sailing to bring together a multitude of varying musical styles. A harmonious coming-together of folky acoustics, sample-heavy electronics and cathartic ’80s, which may very well be a sly tie-in to his future sound on his fourth. We’re met with another interlude in Abstract (Pyschopomp) with a similar notion of God and spirits that Uiscefhuaraithe drew from. A moving tale of a body limp in the soil but its soul escorted through its concrete to afterlife. Another riptide of emotion is strewn our way with Unknown / Nth – the third single released prior – a magnitude of choral weight, triumphant booms and plucky strings in those ‘sweetheart’ moments. First Light closes out the album in astonishing fashion, as we’re beckoned to walk down the church pew from stagehand left, the cascading doors bellow close behind us, as we look at the church spire and into the skies beyond – “Could this be how every day begins? The sky set to burst / The gold and the rust / The colour erupts…”

---

A blinding spell of colour and empathy, Hozier’s third is at his most bold and his most brazen as he addresses the (Nina Cried) power of songwriting through craft.

After performing at Halifax’s Piece Hall and Glastonbury this year, Hozier is set to embark on a tour in America before returning to Europe nearing the end of the year in November, with his sold-out Wembley gig on the 15th of December.