Bono’s boy is a chip off the old rocker
INHALER: It Won’t Always Be Like This (Polydor)
Verdict: A breath of fresh air ★★★★☆
TOM ODELL: Monsters (Columbia)
Verdict: Conquers its demons ★★★☆☆
YOUNG rock groups have been hit harder than most by the lockdowns of the past 16 months. Not only have they been unable to tour regularly, they have also struggled to make records as they once did.
Songwriting sessions have been confined to Zoom and even band meetings in the pub have been off the agenda.
Irish quartet Inhaler are typical. They formed as teenagers at St Andrew’s College in Dublin, and were one of my tips for 2020. They expected to spend most of last summer winning new fans at festivals such as Glastonbury and Latitude. Their first album should have come out so long ago that they would be nervously contemplating its sequel.
Covid-enforced delays mean that debut is only emerging today, but the band have at least used the extra time to their advantage. Rather than the gauche effort they might have produced last year, they have come up with a tight, confident coming-of-age album that combines youthful exuberance with a growing maturity.
That’s due in part to Eli Hewson, whose singing is a towering presence here. And if there’s something familiar about that voice — a certain urgency; his habit of extending a note — that isn’t surprising. Eli, 21, is the eldest son of Paul Hewson, otherwise known as U2 frontman Bono, and the apple clearly hasn’t fallen too far from the tree.
ELI says his parents wanted him to go to university rather than follow a pop career, and only relented after he proved how determined he was to do his own thing. To their credit, Inhaler aren’t U2 clones. They stray a little too close for comfort at times — the frenetic When It Breaks recalls U2’s I Will Follow — but they owe more to the Manchester axis of The Stone Roses and New Order. There are nods to 1990s Britpop, too, accentuated by the production of Antony Genn, once a member of Pulp and Elastica.
The most immediate songs are those about teenage obsessions, some penned when the band were still at school. ‘Play me like a record, baby, spin me around,’ sings Hewson on the title track, a song originally written about meeting girls but re-purposed as an anthem of hope in uncertain times: it won’t always be like this.
Guitarist Josh Jenkinson comes to the fore on My Honest Face, a Kings Of Leon-style rocker that strives to recreate the energy of a live show, with Hewson playing an unapologetic heartbreaker: ‘I didn’t want to hurt you, but there’s just a certain culture when you’re young.’
The most impressive thing about Inhaler is their range. Hewson says lockdown convinced the band to look beyond youthful concerns and address the adult world, and they do so with aplomb on Slide Out The Window, about coming out of quarantine, and Who’s Your Money On? — an admission of human frailty.
They sometimes rely too heavily on atmospheric riffs rather than fully-realised songs, but there’s genuine promise here, with the most inventive numbers edging the band away from rock’n’roll towards New Order-esque synths and Talking Heads-like rhythms. It’s almost as if they’ve made their first and second albums in one fell swoop. With restrictions easing, an autumn tour will finally give them the live stages these tracks demand.
AFTER going full Billy Joel on 2018’s Jubilee Road, Tom Odell (right) makes a dramatic about-turn on his latest album, adding synths and bedroom pop introspection to the mix. The Chichester piano man is having a good year — his 2013 single Another Love has seen an upswing in streaming numbers — and Monsters should fuel his resurgence. The record emerged from a period of anxiety. Alone in California with an alcohol problem after coming off the road in 2019, Odell, now 30, abandoned plans to make an album in LA and flew back to his parents’ house in West Sussex, determined to clean up his act and write his way through his mental health issues. The upshot is a comeback that’s heavy in tone, but uplifting, thanks to the brightness of its tunes. The title track, included twice, addresses his demons and vows to overcome them. ‘You’re just a monster and I’m not scared,’ he says. He goes on to admit, on a song called Lockdown, that the pandemic has at least put his personal woes into perspective: ‘Should have had more fun, should have never really had a worry.’ The move towards electronica has given his music a contemporary sheen. Piano ballad Numb is enhanced with eerie synths and shuddering bass frequencies. There are auto-tuned vocals on Noise and layers of rhythmic effects on Money. It tries a bit too hard at times, but Odell keeps a balance by regularly falling back on his singersongwriter basics.
His love songs are striking, too, with the acoustic Tears That Never Dry driven by a crisp hook, and single Lose You Again a romantic ballad with a promo video shot in a deserted Wembley on the eve of Euro 2020.
Inspired by the DIY pop of James Blake and Billie Eilish, Odell is exploring a new-found sense of adventure, while demonstrating that he’s still capable of crafting an arenaready anthem.