Zahra is a Tolkien-obsessed nerd, geek, and trivia enthusiast who has more books than she has common sense.
With his latest album Unreal Unearthed: Unending finally out in full after a year of piecemeal releases, it's clear that singer-songwriter Hozier has once again composed some of the sexiest, bluesiest rock and roll out there. Yet there is so much more to this 6'6" Irishman and his music than there appears to be on the surface.
10 "Empire Now" Unheard EP ✕ Remove Ads While"Empire Now" didn't make the cut for 2023's Unreal Unearth, it was released on this year's Unheard EP with three other tracks from those recording sessions, and was also included on the album's new expanded version, Unreal Unearth: Unending.
✕ Remove Ads "Butchered Tongue" is Hozier's reflection on seeing languages die, both in his own home, and as he's traveled the world with his music. One of the first times he played it live, at Toronto's Danforth Music Hall, he prefaced the song with his own explanation of it. Check it out in the video below.
While the original cut of the song is a snappy, sexy satire — a supposedly unintentional successor to 18th-century writer Jonathan Swift's"A Modest Proposal," which mocked English attitudes towards the poor by suggesting the Irish sell their children to the bourgeoisie as food — "Bekon's Choral Version" is the darker side of that coin, a reminder that endless consumption can never fill the gaping void at the heart of the capitalist machine.
✕ Remove Ads Guthrie, who among many other things was famous for having the motto"this machine kills fascists" written on his guitar, would have been proud of"Jackboot Jump" for its unsubtle calling of the powers that be to task. The opening line of"To Noise Making " asks the listener if they remember singing"just for the fuck of it" — a powerful sentiment when taken in conjunction with the cacophonously modulated gospel choir on the song's bridge. Pop music is always obsessed with cleanliness, with production quality and radio replayability, and our cultural perspective on music has been increasingly limited by that.
✕ Remove Ads Yet for all that"Nina Cried Power" serves to venerate the contributions of those who came before, it's also an invocation of will for those who have yet to find their power.
2 "To Be Alone" Hozier ✕ Remove Ads First released as a solo live cut closing out his From Eden EP,"To Be Alone" appeared on Hozier's self-titled first album completely transformed by the presence of a full band behind it.
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