Hozier: Unreal Unearth (2LP) [RUBYWORKS / COLUMBIA]

Why you'll love it

Unreal Unearth topped the charts in Ireland and the UK, with "Francesca" and "Eat Your Young" among his most loved songs.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Rubyworks / Columbia pressing

About the album

Like everybody else, Andrew John Hozier-Byrne had a lot of extra time to himself during COVID-19 lockdown days. And so Dante's Inferno and the Flann O'Brien novel The Third Policeman wound up exerting a rather large collective influence over Unreal Unearth, the third full-length album issued under the Irish singer/songwriter's less cumbersome pseudonym Hozier.

The results, which arrived in August of 2023, aren't quite as heavy-handed as touring the "nine levels of Hell" as a conceptual framework might suggest, since Unreal Unearth throws a fizzy guitar-rocker or a wistful folk-pop ditty into the mix here and there to leaven the mood between its many earnest, epic cris de coeur and soaring piano ballads. The whole thing demonstrates, once again, that Hozier is far more than the chap who gifted the world with "Take Me to Church," and he succeeds in that regard.

Also at Kops: more Hozier on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Rubyworks / Columbia, first out in 2023.