Hozier's Triumph
Usually, the brilliant singer-songwriters aren’t part of the billboard top 40 but since a few years we’ve seen several exceptions from Sia to Ed Sheeran and his ballad on every lover’s mouth “Thinking out loud“. Lately, another incredibly gifted artist is part of those charts: Andrew Hozier-Byrne, better known as Hozier. His song Take me To Church has been in the billboard Hot 100 for 28 weeks and peaked at number two in December 2014. Take me to church is also the first song on Hozier’s self-titled debut album. The melody of the song could easily be mistaken for a gospel song, but the lyrics denounce the church’s attitude towards homosexuality, Hozier sings “we were born sick, you heard them say it”, and this association is not trivial. It reinforces the message of the song: homosexuality is no different from religion, it’s all about love. And that is what Hozier’s album is about: love, as he said it himself:”I found the experience of falling in love or being in love was a death, a death of everything. You kind of watch yourself die in a wonderful way, and you experience for the briefest moment–if you see yourself for a moment through their eyes–everything you believed about yourself gone. In a death-and-rebirth sense.”, this is exactly how you live it in Hozier’s Album you face all kinds of love, even the controversial one, the one you found in a “stranger” arms every day as in Someone New.
Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene has the same gospel edge as Take me to church without the hint of darkness and desperation, but more upbeat, “it’s bloody and raw, but I swear it’s sweet” because in Hozier’s album a song isn’t just a song. It’s an atmosphere, a mystery lead by his voice, told by the instrument and set by the different musical genres from gospel to blues in From Eden to R&NB in Jackie and Wilson. The song which shows that best is probably In A Week. A duet with Karen Cowley where he sings “I have never known anger like those insects that feast in me“, and together they sing “after the insects have made their claim, I’ll be home with you“, their voices combined with the slow guitar suggests nothing more than beauty and peace despite what they are saying. Beauty extracted from the most uncommon things, even horrid things, in that Hozier’s reminds me of Baudelaire and his poem “A carcass”.
Hozier’s album is full of promises for the future, that I’m sure Hozier will keep and even surpass.
