apocalyptic love songs for your darkest days | "Wasteland, Baby!" by Hozier | Album Reaction

Hozier's second act is a swing for something bigger — apocalyptic love songs for a world on fire. But bigger isn't always sharper, and Wasteland, Baby! spends a lot of its runtime asking me to meet it somewhere I wasn't always sure I could find. After reacting to Hozier's self-titled debut a few weeks back, I wanted to keep moving through the discography — and this one was both heavily requested in the comments and sitting on my personal list. Going in, I'd already heard "Almost (Sweet Music)," "Movement," "No Plan," and "Would That I." Where the debut felt locked in around a clear identity, Wasteland, Baby! is a looser concept, and I don't think every song completely contributes to the whole or mixes with the others the way I wanted them to. Honestly? I didn't catch the common threads tying this project together until the final title track landed — until that moment, I wasn't sure what was pulling all these songs into the same room. A lot of tracks felt like they got lost in that muddiness. There's of course a lot of fantastic writing on this album — Hozier is Hozier. But for me as a listener, the lyricism hit a wall at times. There's a difference between a song whose complexity adds new flavors to its central idea versus a song whose complexity tips into overcomplication, and too many tracks here landed on the wrong side of that line for me. I kept finishing songs without really grasping what he was trying to communicate — and when I can't land on the point, I can't fully connect. That kept me at arm's length from a lot of this record. As a result, there are more songs here that didn't click for me than on the debut. But I can still appreciate what he was going for with these themes of loving through adversity, loving without needing a larger purpose beyond the love itself. And the love songs — man, no one writes about love the way Hozier does. That much hasn't changed. The lesson of the album, as I hear it, is that we should love through the doom and gloom of life. But that lesson feels almost like an afterthought here, obscured and muddied by overcomplicated metaphor and niche references. A great idea, partially buried. my current ranking 1. almost (sweet music) 2. would that i 3. nobody 4. sunlight 5. be 6. no plan 7. movement 8. talk 9. dinner and diatribes 10. nina cried power 11. shrike 12. wasteland, baby 13. to noise making (sing) 14. as it was Drop your thoughts about the album in the comments! Did you also feel like you missed some of the references and metaphor?? Or am I just an idiot?? lmao #Hozier #WastelandBaby #HozierReaction #AlbumReaction #FirstListen #NinaCriedPower #MavisStaples #IndieFolk #SoulMusic #MusicReaction #AlbumReview #FirstTimeHearing #HozierWastelandBaby 00:00 intro 00:47 Nina Cried Power (feat. Mavis Staples) 06:29 Almost (Sweet Music) 11:13 Movement 15:56 No Plan 21:16 Nobody 25:30 To Noise Making (Sing) 30:33 As It Was 34:55 Shrike 41:34 Talk 46:38 Be 53:28 Dinner & Diatribes 58:52 Would That I 01:04:05 Sunlight 01:08:25 Wasteland, Baby! 01:13:36 final thoughts