How Hozier found ‘a renewed sense of joy’ while contemplating hell on earth

“I’m definitely coming out of the last three years having done plenty of internal janitorial work,” says Hozier. It was a really lovely place to play.” On Aug. 18, the 33-year-old musician, best known for his haunting 2013 hit “Take Me to Church,” will release “Unreal Unearth,” his third studio album and a work that he’s been teasing for months on social media and through the EP “Eat Your Young.” Its 16 tracks are loosely inspired by the first part of the Italian epic poem “Divine Comedy,” Dante Aleghieri’s imagined journey into hell titled “Inferno,” but it doesn’t stray from the singer’s favored themes of love, loss and social consciousness. “I’m definitely coming out of the last three years having done plenty of internal janitorial work,” he says. Musicians tend to be allergic to the idea of a “pandemic album,” but I wonder: How much is “Unreal Unearth” an exploration of hell vis-à-vis Dante’s “Inferno,” and how much is it a pandemic album?