“I wanted to be light and playful with it,” Andrew Hozier-Byrne has said about the subject matter of his third album. Now, given that this is a man whose big hit single, Take Me to Church, was about the evils of Catholicism and had a video depicting homophobic abuse in Russia, who also has a love song sung from the perspective of two decomposing corpses, and whose last album had an armageddon theme, it may not be a surprise to learn that the thing he intends to be light and playful with is Dante’s Inferno.
Unreal Unearth’s 16 songs are supposed to be structured to reference the nine circles of Hell, and show that Hozier spent his pandemic at home in County Wicklow doing some heavy reading. He digested Ovid’s Metamorphoses too. His song Francesca? That’s Francesca de Rimini, murdered by her husband in the 13th century for having an affair with his brother, who Dante shows residing in the second circle of hell for the lustful. Unknown/Nth would be a devastating breakup song in any context, but Hozier gives it an overpowering weight by placing it in the ninth circle, for treachery, and addressing a former lover who has pieces of his heart still stuck in their teeth.
However, as with past work, he can do anthemic and euphoric with even the darkest subject matter, and this collection is rarely as bleak as you might expect. The opener De Selby (Part 1), this one a reference to Flann O’Brien’s experimental novel The Third Policeman, is acoustic and languorous, but followed quickly by De Selby (Part 2), which has a strutting, funky bassline and digitised backing vocals. Damage Gets Done, a duet with the American country singer Brandi Carlile, has a sparkling guitar line and bright, rousing chorus.
Lyrically he has a lovesick poet’s sensibility, but there are glimpses of humour here too. On Anything But, the poppiest moment with its overlapping clapping and synth touches, he imagines himself as everything from a mayfly to a shopping trolley: “I wanna be the thunder of a hundred thousand hooves moving quick/If I was a stampede, you wouldn’t get a kick.”
His folk foundations are audible amid a range of diversions, some less successful. All Things End, with its gospel choir and American R&B stylings, feels too schmaltzy. But there is lots here to treasure, and the full experience is the opposite of hellish.
