i liked hoziers latest album unreal unearth a lot when it came out, but to be honest the more i listened to it the less impressed i was with it. it has a lot of great songs i like but i kinda felt like it ended up being weaker as a whole than wasteland baby
it kind of clicked when ace by madison cunningham came out. these two albums have these things in common
more grandiose instrumentation than their previous music
dramatic/cinematic presentation
the album has a throughline
but i think what ace showed me is that the dramatic grandiose presentation of the entire album as a whole has to be in service of, like, the songs sounding good. cause ended up feeling like unreal unearth being a "9 circles" thing that moves from front to end with a flow between songs was actually a detriment to its actual sound being interesting to me. the cinematic movie score sound is kind of more boring to me than his usual sound but madison cunningham goes in that "chamber" direction thats extremely compelling... & thus the concept of the album, in lyrical and instrumentation and sound as a whole, is strengthened
maybe another ingredient is hoziers shit is kind of just getting poppier which is just not my taste