Foreigner’s God

This song is built on a bassline that seems to drag itself up from the bottom of a river, yet is actually a rhythmic foundation that never lets go. The track Foreigner’s God doesn’t move in a straight line: there’s a sway in the measures that makes you feel as if you’re walking on the shifting surface of a swamp. Hozier’s voice shifts between a whisper and a shout, as though he’s singing from the other side of a fogged-up window. Blues and folk rock intertwine without warning, leaving in the middle that space where the acoustic guitar sounds like it’s playing alone in an empty room.

They recorded it in the United States, at a time when Hozier had already carried the material around for months without knowing how to arrange it. He and Rob Kirwan split the production duties, and the result was an album that, according to Metacritic, critics rated at 79 out of 100. It entered the Billboard 200 chart directly at number two, but the most interesting part isn’t that: it’s that the final mix, handled by Andrew Scheps, gave the song an air of something captured in a single take, as if the very air were part of the performance. It runs for 3:45, just enough time for the bass and voice to tangle without interruption.