Released on March 22, 2024, alternative-indie musician Hozier graced fans with a new EP following his third studio album, Unreal Unearth, titled Unheard. Featuring guest artist Allison Russell (whom I’ve never heard of), the EP holds four tracks, spanning 13 minutes total. A 16-second clip posted to TikTok was used to announce the new extended play and gained just over 2.7 million views and 622.6k likes in ten hours. Comments flooded the video, showing fans’ excitement from all over the world. Listeners wrote, “I WILL BE INSUFFERABLE WHEN THIS DROPS,” “I need this song INJECTED into my veins thx,” and many variations of “screaming, crying, throwing up” to share their elation over this new track.
Screaming, crying, and throwing up are exactly how I’d describe my feelings towards this EP. As unexpected as it was, despite many TikTok teasers for the song “Too Sweet,” I was taken aback when I saw the new release on my Spotify. I instantly tapped. Beginning the mini album with “Two Sweet,” which took the internet by storm after being baited on TikTok, was a brilliant choice. Whether I was a long-time Hozier fan or just now discovered him from the recent buzz surrounding this new song, I would fall in love instantly. Opening with a low-hum bass guitar, “Too Sweet” embraces life’s simplicities while embracing the eclectic extremities of rhythm. The chorus,
I think I’ll take my whiskey neat
My coffee is black, and my bed is three
My coffee is black, and my bed is three
is the most viral and arguably the catchiest part of the entire release. Despite conforming to a more chill aura with his music, Hozier’s vocals in this song feel like a shot of euphoria on Cloud 9 with whipped cream on top. Such a velvety delivery of every line over a constant flow of drums and mingled instrumentation mixes and makes the perfect song concoction.
Despite being such an amazing song, since it gained so much popularity in the public eye even before it was released, I have a feeling “Too Sweet” will be milked by the media and overplayed. It’ll be one of those songs that the KOA radio station plays on repeat, and everyone ends up hating it all of a sudden. Unfortunate, but one day, Gen-Z will be riding passengers in their self-driving cars taking their kids to school, and “Too Sweet” will come on the futuristic radio and remind them of how different life was in 2024.
Track 2, “Wildflower and Barley,” featuring Allison Russell, can only be described as heavenly. Inspired by Dante Alighieri’s poem “The Divine Comedy,” it is a playful, light rendition of the sad, lonely realities of an eerie, quiet, empty city. Written during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hozier described “Wildflower and Barley” as “a kind of love song, but also at a time when everybody was stationary and static and useless, in a time of such crisis,” during the YouTube Premium Party video for “De Selby (Part 2).”) Allison Russell’s feature on this song makes it truly feel like a facilitated growing-to-die relationship where a couple perpetuates something that cannot die but will stand to grow and ease creation.
Such an emotional song with a silly little guitar and skippy tempo makes for a welcoming listening experience. Normally, I’m turned off by melancholy, sad, rainy-day music, but the giddy dynamic evokes a thoughtful, effusive feeling in me as the listener. Not as good as track one, but a good halfway marker for the EP, “Wildflower and Barley,” which ranks high on my list for days when I want to listen to sad girl music without the unnecessary feelings of overwhelming sadness that evoke overly slow-paced strains.
Without having to even listen to the whole EP, I could tell from the start that track three, “Empire Now,” was going to be my least favorite. I appreciate the raw, earthy, Sons of Anarchy-esque, industrial instrumentals, but it was a wild card compared to the rest of the songs. I can see how someone who is well versed in more factory, alternative, and ambient sounds will be intrigued by this track; however, I’m not one of those people. I can’t relate to the lyrics at face value, and I don’t like the texture enough to listen in between the lines. Although a beautiful song with lots of hard work and dedication, track three fell flat and won’t make a spot on my playlist. It’s skippable; to sum it all up, it’s boring.
Unlike “Empire Now,” its predecessor, track four, “Fare Well,” yanked every single one of my heartstrings out, rearranged them, and then shoved them back into my body. At face value, I fully expected a breakup song; I expected Hozier to drown me in my teenage boy sorrows and never be able to recover. Roughly one minute into the ballad, I was thrown into a musical life raft and lifted to find Heaven itself. “Fare Well” is phenomenal. In verse one, Hozier narrates pleasant feelings that end up being followed by an ultimate fate.
Hedgehog-under-a-van-wheel kind of wouldn’t fare well
Out here tryin’ to feel good again
A kitten-cosy-in-the-engine type of wouldn’t fare well
Dog-deep-into-the-chocolate kind of wouldn’t fare well
Out here tryin’ to feel good again
Everyone wants to feel good. Even for a second. That’s exactly the feeling that Hozier painted so vividly in this song. Conveyed with such a buttery feeling, much like the quick fix and instant gratification that are being described in this song, it is an addiction. To feel good again, listen to this song. Reaching audiences from man to woman to nonbinary to old to young to black to white to short to tall to Earth to Mars, whoever you might be, Hozier is speaking to you in the chorus, saying,
Any solitary pleasure that was sorrow in disguise
Let the sun only shine on me through a fallin’ sky
Any solitary pleasure was sorrow in disguise. Read that again. Calling out everyone who has ever coped with something in their life. Whether that be drugs, alcohol, other substances, food, friends, family, exes, or pets, this chorus illustrates how humans are naturally inclined to distract from sorrow. Temporary, quick fixes. The animalistic urge to feel good. The common goal is to satisfy a hierarchy of needs.
Unheard, Hozier’s new EP is stunning. Albums, even mini- and extended-play compositions, are very few and far between when it comes to an overall listening experience. A good ten-ish minutes of Hozier’s 13-minute EP was an out-of-body listening experience—a title that not many artists hold in my book. Regardless of the biffs here and mediocre lyricism there, Unheard deserves an even 7/10 from me.
