OTwo Co-Editor Orla Mahon reviews Inhaler’s latest release, Open Wide. Ultimately, she’d rather await their next album.
Inhaler’s latest album, Open Wide, released on February 7th. However, the band’s heavily anticipated third release has failed to make waves. Formed in 2012, Inhaler - made up of Elijah Hewson on vocals and guitar, Robert Keating on bass, Josh Bartholomew Jenkinson on guitar and Ryan McMahon on drums - seem to have lost their spark.
There’s no grand blunder that’s been made here. What seems to have occurred is that Inhaler have found themselves overly comfortable in a particularl style of sound. Open Wide, compared to previous releases, seems like a project in refinement. The instrumentals have grown tamer, the lyrics appear more self conscious. Gone are the days of the earnestly cliche lines from their first album, It Won’t Always Be Like This (“play me like a record, baby,” reads as a horribly cheesy lyric from the title track, yet Elijah Hewson’s unblinkingly honest delivery makes sound and feel utterly convincing). Inhaler, rather than expanding their sound, appear to have shrunken into themselves. In an attempt to tap further into what made their first album such a sensation, the band have placed themselves into a cage, its boundaries restrict their experimental impulses.
The problem with Open Wide seems to be something much deeper, something that has gone askew in the foundations of the album.
This is not a tirade against pop music. If streamlining into a more pop-sound feels like the natural progression to pursue for Inhaler as a band, it would be completely respectable. There’s little need to subscribe to a hierarchy of genres here - good indie music can be as equally enjoyable as good pop music, obviously. However, the emphasis here is on the word good. Open Wide’s greatest problem is that it just sounds dull. It is difficult to diagnose where the dullness in sound may be coming from. The easiest source to blame would be the addition of a new producer, Kid Harpoon, who has worked with stars from Harry Styles to Shakira. Yet the fact remains that a producer is limited over how much control they actually have over a creative project - their goal is to polish an album, not create one. The problem with Open Wide seems to be something much deeper, something that has gone askew in the foundations of the album.
Perhaps the missing ingredient is something as simple as a loss of passion. Inhaler was initially formed whilst the band members were attending secondary school at St Andrew’s College, Blackrock. With the band now entering its thirteenth year of existence (at various levels of seriousness and success), and after releasing their third album in four years, could it simply be that Inhaler has grown tired?
There’s also a case to be made for the demands of the music industry sucking Inhaler’s creativity dry. In an attention economy, it feels like we’re seeing more and more bands relentlessly pushing out new music in order to maintain a following. Such an attitude exists in antithesis to any meaningful creative process.
Whatever the case may be, I haven’t lost hope for Inhaler, and I will still eagerly await their next release. However, for the band’s own sake, I really don’t mind if that’s a good few years down the line.