By Emily Marshman
Recommended tracks: Nobody, As It Was, Shrike, Talk, Sunlight
Wasteland, Baby! is the long-awaited sophomore album by Irish songbird Hozier. Despite a close to four year dry spell, fans welcomed his EP, Nina Cried Power, with open arms in mid-September, which contained two songs off the album and two extras. The titular track off the EP is also the first on the album, a worthy peek into the tone and theme of the album, which is, as always, simultaneously gloomy and upbeat. Hozier has clearly not come back to fool around and has, instead, returned to claim his throne as king of all things gothic and breathy. Hozier is nothing if not dramatic, big and bold and full of life.
The first three tracks are the first three singles off the album, and help the listener to ease themselves into the experience they’ve signed up for. And it is an experience – you’ll need to listen to the album a few times, the first time to take it all in, the subsequent times to decipher the poetry between otherworldly instrumentals. “Nina Cried Power” is about the journey and the struggle of the musicians that came before him, who paved the way, made his fight easier but worthwhile. About not staying silent and not being complacent in the face of adversity and forces working against you. Its successor, “Almost (Sweet Music),” gives us a peek into the music Hozier carries closest to his heart, especially in the most intimate moments of his life. In “Movement” he worships at the feet of his loved one, expressing the intense call to action he feels when he sees her move.
“Shrike,” track eight, is a very special one – you feel Hozier’s accent, almost overwhelming, as he breathes, “I couldn’t utter my love when it counted / Ah, but I’m singing like a bird, ‘bout it now.” It’s a song about love that slips through your fingers but not because of any higher force – it happens in front of your eyes and it happens because sometimes you take for granted what you have right in front of you.
For fans who are still spinning his self-titled but are wary of his new music, which is absolutely valid – sometimes a new album can shatter the self-sustaining emotional ecosystem fostered when you love an album almost too much – I would recommend the song “Almost (Sweet Music)”. It’s very reminiscent of Hozier, light and folky and lovey, and reminds me of songs like “Someone New” and “Jackie and Wilson”. For anyone who’s never heard of or listened to Hozier, which is something I can’t believe I’m typing, considering his rank as almost godlike among indie Twitter, I would recommend listening to the album in its entirety, but paying close attention to tracks one through three.
An album full of both slow ballads and fast, intense tracks, Wasteland, Baby! is everything a Hozier fan could have wanted and more. The prince of the woods has done it again.
He can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and his website. His North American tour with Jade Bird kicks off in Buffalo, NY later this week.
