Hozier's Inferno

HOZIER IS AN artist known for using biblical, religious, and mythological allusions to make sense of the complexity of human relationships. So, it’s appropriate that he begins Unreal Unearth, his newest and third album, at the beginning. The opening track, “De Selby (Part 1),” serves as a musical preamble that recalls one of the most striking and haunting scenes in the Bible: Genesis 1. Lyrically, Hozier takes us to the very beginning, the Spirit floating, formless, above the void. In a sort of abstract for the album, he sings of “the likes of a darkness so deep / that God, at the start, couldn’t bear.” It was a depth of aloneness so “intolerable,” Hozier explains on his YouTube channel, that God “had to create the world.”

The rest of the album is structured as an epic journey that draws on biblical wellsprings for inspiration. Hozier has spoken publicly about being inspired by Dante’s Inferno. As he journeyed through the isolation and devastation of the pandemic, Hozier saw his story reflected in the 14th-century text by the Italian poet who realized the only way out of the underworld — and into the light — is through it.

Hozier invokes not just Genesis and Dante, but he also scatters in allusions to classical mythology, Paul Simon, Irish modernist literature, down-home church choirs, a nightmarish version of a classic Bond theme, and Goya’s “Saturn Devouring His Son” (the last two in the same song, no less). Hozier’s previous albums covered a wide variety of weighty themes, but Unreal Unearth is easily his most expansive, thematically and musically.

While Unreal Unearth begins in the darkness, it contains moments of startling beauty as the light breaks through. “Damage Gets Done,” featuring the talents of Grammy-award winner Brandi Carlile, encapsulates this dynamic. The duo laments late-stage capitalism and celebrates youthful freedom in the same breath: “It’s the comforts that make us feel numb / We’d go out with no way to get home / And we’d sleep on somebody’s floor / And wake up feeling like a millionaire.” It’s one of the most exultant songs you may hear all year.

Another uplifting album highlight comes in “All Things End.” With its infectious gospel stylings and backing, you can easily picture the choir swaying and clapping their hands as you listen. Throughout the song, Hozier makes various allusions to Matthew 7:26’s “foolish man who built his house on sand.” But the real message of the song is one of resurrection and rebirth: “And all things end / All that we intend is built on sand / Slips right through our hands / And just knowing that everything will end / Won’t change our plans when we begin again.”

Hozier has always tapped into the currents around him to inspire his albums. He’s spoken about how his first foray into the music industry was driven, in part, by the 2008 financial crash, so it’s not surprising he would draw inspiration from the isolation of the pandemic. But Unreal Unearth doesn’t merely chronicle the present; the album taps into the uneasy undercurrents of life that, like the rivers of Hades, lie beneath our daily experience.