Vinyl Record

Hozier - Unreal Unearth

Hozier - Unreal Unearth on 2LP vinyl. A 2023 record available from Kilmorna Collection in Listowel, Ireland.

2LP · 2023

Available from Kilmorna Collection in Listowel.

Buyer notes: 2023 2LP, currently available from the Kilmorna Collection vinyl shelf. Pay for pickup in Listowel or ship within Ireland for EUR 5.50.

Unreal Unearth is Hozier's third album and his most explicitly underworld-shaped work: a long, searching record that moves through desire, grief, language, violence, memory and renewal with the looseness of a journey rather than the neatness of a concept diagram. Released in 2023, it followed the global rise of his debut and the broader reach of Wasteland, Baby!, but it does not simply enlarge those records. It digs downward. The album's architecture takes inspiration from infernal descent, yet the songs remain bodily and immediate. De Selby (Part 1) and De Selby (Part 2) open with darkness and motion. Francesca turns doomed love into defiant blaze. Eat Your Young brings satirical bite and groove. All Things End, Unknown / Nth and First Light widen the emotional field, moving from rupture toward something like release. The production is broad, shifting from folk and soul textures to rock force, choral atmosphere and anthemic pop edges without losing Hozier's central voice. What makes Unreal Unearth powerful is that its ambition does not feel academic. The references serve the songs, not the other way around. Hozier uses myth and literature as pressure systems for contemporary feeling: ecological dread, intimacy, colonial memory, hunger, faith and the body all surface in different forms. It is a dense album, but its density has heat.

Unreal Unearth matters because it confirmed Hozier as an album-scale artist rather than a songwriter defined by one early cultural moment. Its number-one chart performance in Ireland and the UK showed the breadth of his audience, while the record's structure proved he could make literary ambition work inside modern folk, soul and rock forms. It is the point where his catalog becomes openly mythic.

This is the Hozier record for listeners who want the deeper, more expansive side of his writing. It rewards full-album listening because the sequence matters: the opening descent, the mid-album wounds and the final movement toward light are part of the experience. Collectors of contemporary Irish music, literary songwriting and voice-led modern rock should treat it as a major 2020s title.

Expansive folk-soul and rock with choral shadows, earthy grooves, literary drama, intimate acoustic passages and a baritone voice at full narrative scale.

Recommended for: Hozier fans who prefer his most ambitious album arc; Listeners drawn to literary modern folk and soul-rock; Collectors building a serious 2020s Irish music shelf.

When was Unreal Unearth released? Unreal Unearth was released on 18 August 2023. Is Unreal Unearth a concept album? It is a loose concept album shaped by descent and underworld imagery, but the songs still work as individual pieces. Which songs are good entry points? Francesca, Eat Your Young, All Things End, Unknown / Nth and First Light give a strong sense of the album's range.