Hozier's debut record has held up well for me over the years, being a brooding and sinister record in places, but also witty and tongue in cheek in others. Tracks like Jackie And Wilson and From Eden are basically non-skips for me when they come up in shuffle. 2019's follow-up, Wasteland Baby!, on the other hand, really didn't stick with me. I felt it was just so much less inspired and far more commercial and generic. The only track that I regularly come back to from it is No Plan these days.
Unreal Unearth is certainly more ambitious, being an hour long semi-narrative record loosely following Dante's Inferno. I'm not really a literary guy, so I can't really comment on how well the album captures the themes of the book or whether it adds anything interesting to them, but it definitely has a greater feeling of heft and importance than Wasteland Baby! ever did. This is evident from the opening two part De Selby. The first part being this moody and sinister folk tune where Hozier sings in Irish about the connection to self and God, the second being a bombastic pop soul tune showing the flip side, where he sings about running fast enough to escape the things he doesn't want to face. I felt Part 2 was a little clean and polished when I first heard it, it felt like everything in the song had been turned up to 11. It's grown on me a fair amount since then, as Hozier gives it all in the performance and the hook on the song is damn catchy.
I have similar feelings about Francesca, the massive 'Take Me To Church'-esque single from the album. Initially I thought it was fairly standard Hozier, nothing we haven't heard from him before, and with a little more gloss than I would like. But the song at the core of it is pretty damn great and outshines the slightly overblown and unimaginative production. Eat Your Young is definitely the album highlight, with gorgeous cinematic strings soaring over bluesy guitars and Hozier's very dry, sarcastic lyrics tackling the logical extremes of neo-liberal, late stage capitalism. The gory imagery of 'eat your young' is about the closest the album gets to some of the more morbid stuff from the debut that was always really engaging.
While the cinematic and overblown production benefits some of the songs on the album, it certainly hinders others. Damage Gets Done is probably the worst offender, as it just seems every decision on that track knee-caps it in every way. It's a blown out new wave duet with horrendous booming reverb gated drums. It's not a style that I think Hozier is particularly equipped to pull off, but everything about the track is so garish and un-delicate. Hozier and Brandi Carlile spend the entire time fighting to be heard against each other and the ridiculously overpowering drums. On the whole, due to the albums length and how its mixed, I'm finding I'm getting ear fatigue by the end of it. Every track turns it up to 11 and there's just no space to breath. It's not an abrasive record, its just too loud and too overproduced.
The two tracks that really sell the cinematic atmosphere are the midpoint interlude, Son of Nyx, and the closer, First Light. They both use the string section to maximum effect. Son of Nyx is subtle and mysterious, and First Light is the linear, building, uplifting closer that the record needs to bring it out of the darkness and into the light. This is definitely Hozier's most downbeat album, and it can come off a little needlessly self serious at points - it does get a little bogged down in the second half and by the time Unknown / Nth draws to a close I am in desperate need of the uplift that First Light brings.
Unreal Unearth is definitely a more interesting and ambitious album than Wasteland Baby!, but its definitely has its issues and is a long way off the high bar set by the debut. There are a handful of really catchy soul and singer / songwriter songs that I really enjoy, but their wrapped up in an album that is a bit too bloated, a little too self serious, and way too overproduced. It's definitely a pick your favourites and save them kind of release.
Top Tracks: De Selby (Part 1), De Selby (Part 2), Francesca, Eat Your Young, Son of Nyx, First Light
6/10
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