Is this Hozier’s fault? Recently, a cohort of bellowing baritones have remade pop in the brooding Irish superstar’s image. This wave of post-Hozier Epic Sad Guy Music seemingly started with Duncan Laurence’s Eurovision-winning slog “Arcade” and escalated with songs like David Kushner’s “Daylight” and Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” (Top 10 for 100 weeks!), climaxing with Hozier’s own uncharacteristically upbeat “Too Sweet” last year. But it’s his “Take Me to Church” that forms the foundation of ESGM, with its smoky wall-of-sound production and inevitably religious undertones. It’s “Church” that informs the biggest song of 2025 so far: Alex Warren’s “Ordinary,” which draws on similar imagery (“The angels up in the clouds are jealous knowin’ we found/Somethin’ so out of the ordinary”) and even seems to tap the same endless supply of reverb. Unlike the attempted critique in “Church,” though, Warren plays it straight.

Warren’s music is the logical conclusion of the last decade of ESGM, nu-folk resurgence, streambait indie pop, and virtually every other roundly hated musical trend. He’s a Mumford grandson on “Chasing Shadows,” which resembles Myles Smith’s recent hit “Stargazing,” which resembles “The Cave.” Some artists boast about their eclectic taste for credibility: Warren is actively inspired by Kushner and Shawn Mendes, and only rarely indicates familiarity with music released before 2010. Some artists downplay their faith when they hit it big: Warren is a largely secular artist who openly admits to taking inspiration from worship music, which is having its own chart breakthrough this year.

At the center of it all is a very sincere songwriter who’s keenly aware he’s unproven and trying to do right by everyone. On his debut, You’ll Be Alright, Kid, Warren works with a primary trio of collaborators: producer and songwriter Adam Yaron and co-writers Cal Shapiro and Mags Duval. They overcorrect for their star’s inexperience by ensuring that an hour-long album features a huge climax, replete with choirs and strings, roughly every 30 seconds. The back-and-forth between conspicuous drama and extreme blandness makes for a uniquely frustrating listen.

You wouldn’t know it from hearing “Ordinary,” but Warren has an intense backstory: After he lost his father to kidney cancer as a kid, his mother became alcoholic and abusive to Warren and his siblings. By 18, Warren was living out of his car with his now-wife Kouvr Annon. After a stint making videos, he joined the influencer collective Hype House, and finally turned to songwriting. It’s a compelling come-up, and he speaks of this period with a disarming clarity that, at his best, carries over into his lyrics. On “First Time on Earth,” Warren reckons with his mother’s actions with a mature sentiment that doesn’t need dressing up: “It’s just pain that you were passing down/I’m older, and I see it now.” There’s a genuine gut-punch moment in the bridge when he says, “I’d forgive you if we still had time.” (His mother passed away in 2021.) Songs like “Never Be Far” and “Chasing Shadows” return to that central familial motivation, and it’s to Warren and his co-writers’ credit that of the many things to become repetitive over 21 tracks, that always remains affecting. “Bloodline,” which on the surface resembles Avicii’s “Hey Brother,” is sung to Warren’s actual brother, and beneath the millennial whoops, there’s an intimacy to it.