Dublin rock quartet Inhaler have released their third album Open Wide via Polydor Records. This much anticipated record follows a busy couple of years for the band, who have been touring the world supporting acts such as Arctic Monkeys, Pearl Jam, Kings of Leon and Harry Styles. With that schedule it’s amazing that they even found the time to write and record an album!
Open Wide gives us a slight shift in music, with a much wider mix of tracks that fit well together on the album. Time will tell if it can replicate the number one that debut album It Won’t Always Be Like This achieved. The 2023 follow-up Cuts & Bruises didn’t do too badly either, reaching number one in the Irish charts and peaking at number two in the UK.
Eddie In The Darkness starts at at a light pace, with Eli Hewson’s vocals working well alongside some piano before exploding into life for the chorus. This one should get the crowd moving during the live shows this month. Billy (Yeah Yeah Yeah) has a nice guitar riff running through that will have your foot tapping along, and the guitar playing from Josh Jenkinson is the standout here. This third record is definitely leaning towards their most pop sounding release to date – we noticed that straight away when Your House was released in October 2024. Kid Harpoon has did a great job on the production side of things.
Another of the early releases is A Question of You where Hewson is joined by backing vocalists, making this one of the most pop-driven songs on the album. Even Though opens in The Killers style, with a synth-led intro followed by some memorable bass playing from Robert Keating. To be honest, Keating is a standout on just about every track on here, showing off his unique style of bass techniques as it pulses through your body while listening. Again has some nice guitar melodies from Jenkinson and the title track Open Wide continues in the same direction – the vocals from Hewson are some of the best on the album. All I Got Is You features some skilful synth and guitar notes, elsewhere Still Young opens with the lyrics: “I met you on a Sunday, it promised not to rain/the sky would open up on our parade.” Getting back to the song title, these four childhood friends are still young and have lots of time on their side to establish themselves as a major band – this track is one of the standouts on the LP.
The Charms is another of the foot-tapping songs that are at the heart of Open Wide. It has a great mixture of vocals, synth and guitar giving off very happy vibes. As we move towards the end of the thirteen-track record, X-Ray is very guitar driven and is going to sound even better live, as is penultimate song Concrete with Jenkinson once again showing off his guitar skills. Little Things is all about the vocals, as Hewson sings: “Little things, nothing’s gonna change the way I feel about .. little things” – an anthem in the making here with an easy-to-learn chorus.
We have been lucky enough to see Inhaler live on four occasions, firstly at Barrowland during their It Won’t Always Be Like This album tour, Neighbourhood Weekender in 2022, followed by a support for Noel Gallagher in Dundee and TRNSMT in 2023. We have watched Inhaler develop reasonably quickly over these couple of years into a mainstream band and, judging by this new album, we think that Inhaler will be arena-ready in no time.
9/10
Standout Tracks: Eddie In The Darkness, Your House, Still Young
For Fans Of: Wunderhorse, Blossoms, Circa Waves
Written by: Alan Brown
