Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It feels as though it is only a short time that Hozier burst onto the scene and took a new army of fans under his wing. In that short time, fuelled by a rampant merciful and laid back attitude, of songs so strong that they find themselves competing in competitions on beaches with their musical muscles rippling in the off shore breeze and the bronzed tan glistening in the summer sweat, has not been wasted. It has been fully developed and brought to the point of flourishing abundance and as the crowd at the Empire Theatre gave thanks in their hundreds for each and every song that appeared Genie like before them.

The Empire Theatre has had the honour of playing host over the many decades to great musicians, some legends even and it always feels that privilege is being witnessed, that Time is allowing the crowd a peek at a a man already crossing from one spectrum of musical desire to another state of influence altogether.

The soul sucking cold of the January expedition in search of a night out, in search of a memory to cherish might feel a fruitless exercise when a warm living room and a appreciative fire are more pressing concerns and yet in the glow of performance, the signal of musical beauty goes out across Liverpool and the home of the well performed gig is never to be ignored.

In Hozier’s set, the laid back collided with the rampant, the singular beauty clashed magnificently with the raw but well preserved and in songs such as To Be Alone, Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene, a enjoyable version of Lennon and McCartney’s Blackbird, In A Week, Arsonist’s Lullaby and the massive Take Me To The Church, that collision of spirit and virtue was like watching a star being born in the depths of space, the force of such enough to make the soul happy it ventured out in such demanding and riled weather.

A start to the year in which many will not forget and no wonder when a musician of very cool quality comes a calling!

Ian D. Hall