I’m a reader, and I tend to latch onto things inspired by literature. Whether I feel a kinship to the author or the idea that other people have strong feelings about art of days old, who can say. Andrew Hozier-Byrne’s music has always scratched this itch for me, as he often pulls references from mythology, and, with this album specifically, Dante’s “The Divine Comedy”. When I started diving into Unreal Unearth and started picking it apart, I can honestly say I haven’t been this enamored with an album as a whole in a while. Hozier has described this project in various press as his “pandemic album.” We’ve seen some heavy introspective creations from artists these past few years when the only thing they could do was write, but I haven’t been so impressed with a body of work as Unreal Unearth. From the first track’s segue into the second, to the last track, Hozier stays consistent lyrically and musically. 

If you haven’t read or looked into “The Divine Comedy”, the short of it is that Dante created an allegory in the form of a poem in which he travels to The Underworld and experiences the types of punishment for sin by going through what he deems the Circles of Hell, kind of a jawbreaker of damnation. There are nine of these Circles, and they each deal with an overarching shortcoming of man, each Circle a transgression worse than the last. Virgil, a poet of ancient Rome, guides Dante through these Circles, before they eventually escape back to the Earthly realm just before Easter Sunday.

So given that brief explanation of something I have not read in its entirety (it gathers dust on my bookshelf), let’s get into the spin that Hozier puts on it, since he clearly read the source material. After this album I actually am thinking of picking it up and going through it.

The album starts with “de Selby”, Parts 1 and 2, the latter of which was released as the final single before release. These represent Dante’s descent into the Underworld, or in Hozier / real world, the start of the pandemic. The theme here is love, loss, and the idea that we all went through something huge together, but came out the other side. We were all changed forever, and what matters here is what we do with the changes that occurred. “De Selby (Part 1)” features Hozier singing in traditional Gaeilge. “De Selby (Part 2)” is funky, fresh, and something new from Hozier. A pleasant surprise, and it does have some nuances that continue throughout, most notably in “All Things End”. 

In “First Time”, we head to Limbo, or Purgatory as most would recognize. Here Hozier sings from the grave of love lost and his own death that has happened recently, with lines like, “These days I think I owe my life / Fo flower that were left here by my mother” and, “Some part of me must have died / The final time you called me baby”. It’s that in between of where something good starts to sour – Limbo.

“Francesca” and “I, Carrion (Icarion)” sit in the second circle, Lust. I feel like Lust is a place that feels very comfortable for Hozier to write from; a lot of his past tracks fit that vein. I mean he got where he is by a song treating time with his lover like church. If Hozier writes well when he is in love, he almost writes better when he wishes he was. While “Francesca” tells the story of The Divine Comedy character who tells her story of infidelity to Dante and isn’t autobiographical, “I, Carrion (Icarion)” uses the myth of Icarus to show how Hozier would go so far to fly to the sun to his death if it meant she would stay.

Moving through to Circles three and four, Gluttony and Greed, we get “Eat Your Young” and “Damage Gets Done”, the latter featuring powerhouse vocals from Brandi Carlile. Hozier almost never has features on his tracks so it’s always special when he finds someone who can match his vibe and add to the song, though this isn’t to say Brandi Carlile is a mere addition, the song needs her for the punch to land. One of the more “fun” tracks, it’s an easy listen and will end up on Spotify road trip playlists. Within the context of Unreal Unearth, it paints a picture of youth and how eventually growing up brings disillusionment.

“Son of Nyx” is instrumental, and was written after Hozier listened to a voice memo by his bassist Alex Ryan. It is smack in the middle of the album and almost serves as an entre’act, with callbacks from sonic choices throughout the album, and is definitely a turning point. In Greek myth, Nyx is the goddess of night, and her son is Charon, the ferry pilot of the River Styx. He brings people back and forth from the shores of Hell to presumably, where they fall on the sin-spectrum.

My favorite track has been judged and chosen by the fact that it’s the first one that made me cry: “Abstract (Psychopomp)”. A psychopomp is someone who guides a soul to death, not necessarily the grim reaper but someone who works for him, I guess. Hozier presents this topic by recalling a childhood memory of watching someone try to help an animal who had been hit by a car. It’s such a picture of true human nature and compassion and it really hit me. Likewise, “Butchered Tongue” is about the tendency to forget where we come from, in the context of language. Hozier speaks of places of names that were once sacred to indigenous peoples, and sings about how grateful he is that his Irish culture refuses to forget. I think these two tracks are siblings, despite being about very different things. There is such a trend these days of wanting to live more quiet, simple lives, but sometimes it’s hard to do, and it’s not even the physical actions of living simply but the idea of getting back to our simple selves emotionally, the selves that want to help other without abandon.

If you have followed me this far through the Circles of Hell, you’ve made it to the album closer, “First Light”. Hozier comes out of this journey of introspection and takes us back up to the sun with him. Soaring choirs and strings close out the album in triumph. We have done the hard work and have come out victorious. No doubt this is how we all wish we could face difficulties in life, and I think it’s the only ending to such an incredible piece of art. Unreal Unearth is true to its name: it feels at once otherworldly, and at the same time so grounded, and it pulls out emotions we didn’t know we had and muscles we didn’t know we could still use. It’s expansive, it’s creative, it was worth the wait and worth the trip.

by Nadia Alves

Nadia Alves has been a music enthusiast since she can remember. Going to shows is her main pastime. The other is being upset when she can’t go to shows. This is her first official venture into writing about music. You can follow her on Twitter.