Inhaler still has everything to prove when it releases its second album. More than the average rock band, since its singer, Elijah Hewson, is Bono’s eldest son. On the one hand, it attracts attention. On the other, it adds pressure.
It’s hard to completely discount Inhaler’s connection to rock royalty. The filiation can be heard: Elijah Hewson’s voice has a timbre and inflections close to those of Bono (which makes you want to rename it “mini-Bono”). However, it would be unfair not to take the group he formed with Ryan McMahon (drums), Robert Keating (bass) and Josh Jenkinson (guitar) for what it is, that is to say a group of young people musicians still in the process of defining themselves.
It Won’t Always Be Like This showed a sense of musical hook and a desire for grandeur. Cuts & Bruises widens the palette: in addition to neat melodies, we feel a work of textures in the guitars (Dublin in Ecstasy), a desire to enrich the atmosphere (Now You Got Me), to get out of the indie-pop-rock framework. Inhaling once again shows its skill, its very ease. Except that he fails to make believe in anything other than his potential.
There are indeed beautiful promises in his songs, but no magic yet. Nothing that resembles the unspeakable excitement caused by The Strokes or Arctic Monkeys from their first records. Nothing is as obvious as the first Stone Roses, disc which sits at the top of the charts of Inhaler.
Elijah Hewson and his pals seem to have the skills and attitude to stand out. They still have to develop their imagination and, above all, their songwriting (the texts, in particular), which will perhaps allow them to go beyond the stage of rock songs well done, but a little banal (The Things I Do). Until then, we can see what Inhaler is capable of on stage on March 20 at the Corona Theater.
Pop rock
Cuts & Bruises
Inhale
Polydor / Universal