Inhaler: Cuts & Bruises – Exciting glimmers of greatness

At this point, Inhaler are undoubtedly resigned to the fact that they will always be mentioned in the same breath as U2, although not for musical reasons. With the recent “nepo baby” discourse continuing to generate headlines, the Dublin band remain on the back foot in many ways – at least with discerning musos who dismiss them on the basis of frontman Elijah Hewson’s parentage.

Nevertheless, with their 2021 debut It Won’t Always Be Like This, the four-piece exhibited an enthusiasm that pasted over their inexperience and a tendency to hero-worship their influences. Now comes the real test with album number two – there is only so far that nepotism and industry connections can get you, after all.

Cuts & Bruises continues the young band’s thread of 1980s-influenced rock, as heard on the pacy shimmer and finger-clicking indie chorus of Love Will Get You There, the atmospheric Just to Keep You Satisfied and the reverb-heavy clipped beat of Dublin in Ecstasy.

[ Inhaler interview: The pandemic gave Eli Hewson and co space to rethink their debut album ]

Simple Minds, Echo and the Bunnymen, Orange Juice, The Cure, and yes, even early U2 rear their heads here, the latter particularly audible on the bustling chorus of These Are the Days – a rock song with a sweep of the epic. Perhaps it’s (literally) in their DNA?

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Elsewhere, the quartet make an admirable effort to break away from the moody indie template that dominates Cuts & Bruises’s tracklist. The soulful shuck of If You’re Gonna Break My Heart sounds like something The Commitments might have covered, with a lovelorn Elijah Hewson insisting that his paramour “Smash [his heart] to pieces, ‘cos I’m not gonna need it as much as I do right now”, while the thrilling dashes of strings cut across the grimy bassline of The Things I Do with confidence and panache.

[ It Won’t Always Be Like This review – Polished and confident indie-rock debut ]

Hewson’s voice is a treat throughout, swarthy and soaring in all the right places. His lyrics, meanwhile, are serviceable throughout; neither clunky enough nor inspiring enough to invite comment. Perfect Storm is a highlight, though, with some clever wordplay found amid the detritus of his broken heart as he laments how “Everything we had is good as gone, lying in the wreck of your perfect storm.”

In many ways, this is just another middle of the road indie-rock record, albeit one that is undeniably head and shoulders among many of their mainstream Irish peers. Still, there remains an exciting glimmer of possibility within these songs that Inhaler may yet go on to great things.

Is a third album worth waiting for? On this basis, just about.