Dublin quartet Inhaler may have already clocked up a UK chart topper in their 2021 debut It Won’t Always Be Like This and a silver podium place with its follow-up, 2023’s Cuts & Bruises, but in more personal ways, says 25-year-old frontman Elijah Hewson, this month’s third act, Open Wide, feels like a new beginning.
In 2020, they placed fifth on the BBC’s annual Sound Of poll and, alongside writing and recording their first two LPs, they’ve barely stopped touring since the pandemic; in 2023 alone, Inhaler opened up for Harry Styles, Pearl Jam, Arctic Monkeys and Sam Fender on top of their own headline dates.
“I think we were very eager to say ‘yes’ to everything, and maybe the music was … not left by the wayside, but if I could go back and do something different I probably would have waited to put out the first album until we had felt more confident within ourselves,” Hewson suggests.
But having given themselves a period of time off, returning to their teenage rehearsal room to write before recording their third album in a focused chunk for the first time ever, Open Wide finds Inhaler regarding themselves in a different light.
Where their opening moves saw the quartet largely labelled an indie band, Open Wide is unashamed in its bold, commercial choruses and wish for wider connection; first single Your House is essentially glam-rock by way of Take That.
