Hozier’s extended play album Unheard is a beautifully composed set of four songs, which had me utterly enthralled from its very first note. Like a siren’s call, Hozier’s voice is enchantingly alluring, ensnaring ships under the guise of its angelic front to crash against the fervent shores of his deeply profound and poetic lyrics. 

Beginning with “Too Sweet,” its amorous melody beguiles the listener into the pretenses of love, while in actuality, the song is the frank rejection of a perfect, innocent girl. Hozier, with inclinations to much darker romance, describes his lover as “bright as the morning” and “sweet as a grape,” comparing her to wine fermenting in a barrel, while he prefers his “whiskey, neat” and love, mature and flawed.

The next song, “Wildflower and Barley,” immersed me in its soothing, calm embrace, as I was transported to the idyllic landscape of a countryside filled with blessings of springtime and the colorful hues of “wildflower and barley,” symbols of the perennial rebirth of nature. 

In an abrupt transition, “Empire Now,” with its intensely rhythmic drums and harsh guitar strings, feels extraordinarily passionate, as if one were now approaching the fall of humanity. Hozier’s voice is sincere, refusing to “sell the world” and willing to die alongside it, a terrifying analogy to our eroding Earth and the destruction caused by our hands. 

Ending the album with “Fare Well,” Hozier’s play on words creates a hauntingly beautiful song in which he expresses how he’ll take “any high” and “any solitary pleasure,” despite it being “sorrow” in disguise, no matter the cost.

In both sound and meaning, Unheard is divine, conveying Hozier’s internal turmoil with the eternal, yet ephemeral nature of life, and is most certainly worth a listen.