Hozier (album)
| Hozier | ||||
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| Studio album by Hozier | ||||
| Released | 19 September 2014 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 53:26 | |||
| Label | ||||
| Producer | Rob Kirwan | |||
| Hozier chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Hozier | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Aggregate scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 79/100 |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    |
| The Arts Desk | |
| The A.V. Club | B |
| Clash | 8/10 |
| Entertainment Weekly | A- |
| Exclaim! | 9/10 |
| The Irish Times | |
| Rolling Stone | |
| State | |
| The Telegraph | |
Hozier is the eponymous debut studio album from Irish musician Hozier. The album was released on 19 September 2014 through Island Records and Rubyworks Records. The album contains some tracks from Hozier's previous two EPs, Take Me to Church and From Eden.
Well received by music critics, Hozier was also commercially successful, reaching top ten positions in Ireland, UK, the United States, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Greece. The album's lead single "Take Me to Church" was a huge success worldwide, and also earned a nomination for Song of the Year at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards in 2015.
At a live performance in Boston, Hozier explained that "Cherry Wine", was recorded late at night in an old, abandoned hotel with a caved-in roof and walls covered in graffiti. "It was like 5 in the morning and I was so tired... and it ended up on the first EP!"
The lyrics "Two corpses we were, two corpses I saw / They'd find us in a week" of "In a Week" revolve around an upland area known as the Wicklow Mountains or Wicklow Hills near Hozier's hometown of Bray. "Anytime you hear 'Wicklow Hills', it's usually before or after the words 'a body was found'," said Hozier.
The album was available to pre-order in Europe upon its announcement with North American and Australian pre-order dates from July 2014. The album was released 19 September 2014.
Hozier received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 79, based on ten reviews.
AllMusic's Timothy Monger called the album "a strong debut," praising the singer's soulful voice and the quality of the material. "Like fellow Irishman Van Morrison did decades before, Hozier draws on the soul and R&B of Jackie Wilson and runs it through the mystery white-boy filter of Jeff Buckley, adding a touch of Bon Iver's rural indie aesthetic to mix into his own dark cocktail," he wrote.
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Wikipedia