The crashing desolation of Andrew Hozier-Bynre’s debut single, Take Me to Church, makes for a perversely delectable earworm. One of the most-streamed songs of last year, and Grammy-nominated, it’s put the 24-year-old Wicklow songwriter on the map. He seems to be rising to the occasion. Approaching the end of his UK tour – long sold out, with tickets being resold for up to £250 each – he’s relaxed when he needs to be, intense when it counts.
Though flanked by his band, Hozier cuts a solitary figure. Long-haired and windblown, he leans into the mic and sings his stories, many of them marked by fiery comeuppances for the protagonists; in the alt-country lullaby In a Week, a modern-day Romeo and Juliet die together and are eaten by bugs.
That’s the kind of chap Hozier is: while his prematurely aged voice is glancingly similar to that of gap-year troubadour George Ezra, he seems to be the real deal, fuelled by a blues singer’s gothic morbidity. Maybe it’s something in the water back home. In a Week, languidly sung with Irish cellist Alana Henderson, is prefaced with: “If you live in Ireland, you only hear about the Wicklow Hills before or after the words: ‘A body has been found’.”
He’s clearly a student of the blues – from the Delta pioneers to the stark reinterpretations by the White Stripes and their ilk. The lights dim as he sings Skip James’s Illinois Blues, a moment of spectral enchantment that’s followed by a three-song showcase of the most primal songs from his debut album. He’s accompanied by staccato drumbeats on To Be Alone, the Stripesiest moment of the night.
Take Me to Church crowns the set, despite being hurried through as if he’s played it every day for 18 months. Which he has, and probably will for months to come.
• At O2 Academy, Newcastle, 22 May. Tickets: 0191-260 2020. Then touring.
