Island レコード& CD

Review: Inspired initially by the likes of Screaming Jay Hawkins, Tom Waits and Nina Simone, the Wicklow-born Andrew Hozier-Byrne nurtured his own unique voice, taking soulful gravitas and bluesy grit and using them to sculpt songs with both a soul-searching approach and an unusual earthiness. His first single Take Me To Church was a surprise hit, its existential crises and potent melancholy striking a chord via their intensity of delivery, and this debut shows that it was no flash-in-the-pan. In a world of young artists overly obsessed with overstating their own authenticity, it doesn't take long to work out you're in the presence of one with raw talent to render such concerns redundant.