THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Inhaler’s debut album It Won’t Always Be Like This a record that sees singer-guitarist Elijah Hewson (son of U2 frontman Bono) and his bandmates Josh Jenkinson, Robert Keating and Ryan McMahon turn their early promise into an album teeming with expansive indie-rock grooves and soaring anthems.
The world is a different place to when the Irish quartet formed the band as teenagers in Dublin seeking to emulate the big-thinking, big-chorused indie-rock bands they worshipped with some uplifting anthems of their own. A run of euphoric singles had helped Inhaler gather thrilling momentum by the time the world went into lockdown in March 2020.
Over the next year, as they crafted and honed a debut album in a manner that no-one has ever dreamed of making their debut album — writing sessions over Zoom, quarantine conditions in the studio, no pubs open to reflect on a hard day’s tracking — it was the words of their early single that they kept coming back to: “It won’t always be like this.” Six words to hang on to. That sense of remaining hopeful, of pulling through hard times, seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, is the thread that ties this mesmeric collection of songs together. “There’s a sense of optimism on this album and the song It Won’t Always Be Like This is the main catalyst for that,” says Hewson. “We kept coming back to that title.”
When everything was going to pot, when the future looked uncertain, Inhaler kept the faith. It Won’t Always Be Like This is a coming-of-age record, an album about adolescence, love, getting lost and finding yourself again. It closes one chapter of the band’s life and opens another.”
