Irish singer-songwriter Hozier’s third studio album metaphorically aligns the artist’s experience isolating during the COVID-19 pandemic with Dante’s descent into the nine circles of Hell as depicted in his “Inferno.” Sixteen tracks map out the singer’s journey, from the moody, ethereal beginning of Purgatory with “De Selby Part 1”, to the powerful, devotional love ballad of “Francesca”, the gospel-inspired mantras of “All Things End”, and finishing on the hopeful proclamation of “First Light”, the emergence back to the surface that doubles as a celebration on Hozier’s part for the world opening back up again.
The album also marks a change in Hozier’s song writing and production. While his first two albums were almost entirely crafted by his own pen, “Unreal Unearth” features dozens of collaborators, producers, and other musicians, a conscious effort on his part to make up for the past few years spent on his own. While the sound is bigger and more polished, and the variance of the tracks display the new collaborative style, the lyricism and subject matter remain true to the artist’s roots, with songs like “Butchered Tongue” evoking Ireland’s colonized history, and “Eat Your Young” serving as a protest anthem calling out the self-destructive militarism of the modern day ruining the chances of future generations having a tomorrow. Several songs speak to a more personal confession, such as the bittersweet “First Time” describing a happy relationship running its course, and “Abstract (Psychopomp)” mourning the memories of a lost love. Fans of alternative rock and literary allusions would be well suited to play “Unreal Unearth” from start to finish.