If there ever was a day when it’s great to be a queer person with deep-seated Catholic trauma, obsessed with natural landscapes, renewal, and decay, and with feelings so deep they will shake the very foundations of the Earth, then that day is the day when new Hozier music is announced.
Irish singer-songwriter Hozier—full name Andrew Hozier-Byrne—is fresh off the success of his third studio album, Unreal Unearth, a project inspired by Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy—more specifically, Dante’s Inferno. Each track represents one of the circles of Hell as described in Dante’s 14th-century poem.
Unreal Unearth was released in August 2023 and has personally never left the forefront of my mind—though I’m sure that is a pretty communal experience for every Hozier fan out there. So you can imagine the kind of collective shock the entire community went through when he announced that there’s a brand new EP to be released shortly. Screaming, crying, shaking, and stocking up on tissues ensued.
Hozier announced the news during a radio interview with the Mexican radio show El Camino, recorded before his concert in Mexico City for the Unreal Unearth tour he’s currently on. Hozier expanded on his announcement by saying that this new EP will include four songs from what I can only imagine is a treasure trove of unreleased tracks.
Hozier only revealed details about one of the included tracks on the upcoming EP. He revealed that one song will be a duet with Canadian singer-songwriter Alison Russell titled “Wildflower and Barley.” Hozier mentioned that the song was written during the pandemic as a reflection on the stillness and the eerie emptiness that surrounded both himself and the rest of the world. He did go on to describe the song as “playful,” but if I’m being honest, I’ve never trusted Hozier to write something that didn’t make me want to bawl my eyes out for five to ten business days.
As for when this EP is coming out, Hozier stated that it will be released “next month,” so we can likely expect it sometime around mid-March. Maybe around Hozier’s birthday, which just so happens to be on March 17? We’ll simply have to wait for more information.
This EP will be the fifth of Hozier’s career, following his 2013 debut EP Take Me to Church and then From Eden in 2014, Nina Cried Power in 2018—which anticipated his sophomore album Wasteland, Baby! in 2019—and Eat Your Young in 2023. Three out of the four tracks on Eat Your Young would go on to be included in Unreal Unearth’s tracklist.
(featured image: Island Records)
