Irish musician Hozier’s newest EP, “Eat Your Young,” released on Friday and was unfortunately a letdown I would’ve never expected
from him.
Although the first two songs were released early to tease the EP, I never listened to them because I wanted to save all of the excitement, but was immediately disappointed.
The titular song “Eat Your Young” is the only song I saved to my music library because of how cinematic it sounds.
The track is anti-war and anti-capitalist, as Hozier sings “Honey, I wanna race you to the table/ If you hesitate, the gettin’ is gone/ I won’t lie if there’s somethin’ to be gained/ There’s money to be made, whatever’s still to come.”
I love the way Hozier was able to discuss the gluttony of those in power, explaining how he feels the need to “race to the table” in order to avoid being controlled by those with authority.
Listeners are taken through a series of events in which he escalates from the thought of fighting for liberation to actually executing it in the lyrics, “Get some/ Pull up the ladder when the flood comes/ Throw enough rope until the legs have swung.”
This is a song I can imagine playing during the film credits of a western movie when the protagonist successfully escapes from the dangerous plot.
Hozier’s lyrical talent is displayed in “All Things End,” but the melody completely kills it for me.
The slower tempo compared to the first track creates an odd shift when listening in chronological order, something I like to do when listening to new albums.
In the first verse, he sings “If there was anyone to ever get through this life/ With their heart still intact, they didn’t do it right.”
This has to be my favorite line in the song because Hozier’s not afraid to admit that life comes with pain and it’s something that should be expressed, instead of concealed.
The third and final track, “Through Me (The Flood),” was an OK song that touches on death and grief.
Despite the lyrics being very descriptive, the song has a slow buildup that didn’t have to be told in such a long-form way.
In the song, he tells listeners to imagine a scenario of a man looking back at his life and seeing the world in a whole new lens.
Hozier is amazing when it comes to storytelling, but this particular song could have been sung without being such a slow burner.
I wish he focused more on voicing his feelings, rather than telling listeners to picture the scenarios of death.
It was unlucky that each song started to get worse and worse as I listened to the album, but I have hopes that Hozier’s upcoming studio album will be better than this.
“Unreal Unearth” is set to release sometime this year and will include songs from this EP, according to a Saturday Evening Standard article.
I want to be proven wrong when “Unreal Unearth” comes out because this EP was a total miss, which is not common for an artist who I often enjoy listening to.
Since his last album in 2019, I was expecting “Eat Your Young” to be a refreshing comeback that was going to scratch the itch I’ve been having.
