Hozier’s third studio album, Unreal Unearth is undoubtedly my favorite album release from this year. Not only has he been one of my favorite artists for the last near-decade, I also believe that he is one of the greatest songwriters of the 21st century. Unreal Unearth is absolutely Hozier’s most grand masterpiece and, in my opinion, his greatest album to date (though I’ll always have a place in my heart for his self-titled album).
Hozier’s Unreal Unearth has its roots in a literary masterpiece. Being mostly framed around Dante’s Inferno, each song (sometimes multiple songs) leads us through a circle of hell in the same way Virgil leads Dante through Hell in the Divine Comedy. The album serves to process an intense breakup that Hozier says he went through shortly after the height of the pandemic, each song a different way of feeling the love that was there and grieving what was lost.
For those who want a more in-depth breakdown of how each track relates to Inferno, I highly recommend Honor Luca’s video on the album, linked here. She not only breaks down each song, but dives deep into all the literary references in each of these songs and how they pull from the Divine Comedy.
The album opens with the tracks “De Selby pt.1” and “De Selby pt. 2,” based around the story of a man who believed that nighttime was caused by a buildup of smog and smoke in the air each night and that it was simply an illusion. In terms of Inferno, we are still above ground. We then move through the first circle of Hell (technically Limbo) with the song “First Time,” a beautiful track about the power that love still holds, even in death. The second circle (lust) is represented through the tracks “Francesca” and “I, Carrion (Icarian)” which pull from stories in Inferno and Greek mythology, respectively. The third, fourth, and fifth circles (gluttony, greed, and wrath) are told through “Eat Your Young,” “Damage Gets Done,” and “Who We Are.” “Damage Gets Done” was my first favorite on the album with a beautiful feature from the legendary Brandi Carlile adding incredible harmonies to this upbeat tune about not regretting the choices we make in life.
The next few circles are represented by a few songs each, including one of my personal favorites – “Abstract (Psychopomp)” – categorized under the eighth circle (fraud). Finally, we ascend with Hozier back to the land of the living with the closing track “First Light” and what an ascent it is. This is one of my favorite songs that Hozier has written and perfectly encapsulates the album as a whole – the bittersweet, relieving feeling of recovering from a dark period of time; still yearning to hold onto what was there in the first place, but finding freedom in release.
Unless Hozier’s team simply decided not to submit this album for consideration, this album receiving zero Grammy Award nominations is, in my opinion, one of the greatest snubs of all time. Hozier put his heart and soul into every track on this album, which could be more accurately described as a musical epic. The interweaving of soul, folk, and pop elements, a slew of literary allusions, and a full orchestra backing him on many of the tracks comes together to create an album of grandeur and groundedness all at the same time. The album is a little on the long side at just over an hour run-time, but (despite all that has been said in this review), it’s an incredibly approachable album both for the casual listeners and deep-divers. I hope you all do yourselves the greatest favor you can this year by investing some time in Hozier’s Unreal Unearth.
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