There’s no two ways about it: indie-rock is heavily oversaturated. Because of that, it becomes all too easy to dismiss each band falling under that umbrella as echoing their contemporaries a bit too closely. Every now and then, however, there comes a band that pull at the seams of the genre, ripping through the carefully calculated fabric of the indie landfill. They fashion their own shapes, and it is completely thrilling. 

On their long-awaited debut album, It Won’t Always Be Like This, Inhaler prove they are that very band. It practically shimmers with promise and the exhilarating realisation that this a band completely coming into their own. Opening with the track from which their debut takes its name, Inhaler prove that their anthemic tendencies have the capacity to turn each lyric into a taunt. It toes the line between optimism and pragmatism and is shatteringly grounded. 

Whilst many of the tracks had appeared in some capacity in their live shows previously, the iterations that appear on the album are slick and somehow more intelligent. It is as though their sound was something they needed to grow and mature into, and now it fits perfectly. It’s incredibly considered and whilst it holds their best so far, it holds electrifying hints of what is to come for the band. ‘When It Breaks’, one of their strongest releases thus far, is more feverish and bristling than before, crackling with fierce light. Fan favourite ‘My King Will Be Kind’ also shows a more intrepid version of the band – carried by a volatile, brazen bass line and a characteristically undaunted, razor-sharpness to their lyrics, it is a new, unflinching version of the four-piece.

The distinctive vocals on the album are rendered even more intoxicating by breathy harmonies on tracks like ‘Totally’, and their guitar lines are relentlessly simmering – ‘A Night On The Floor’ has the most intensely fraught guitar solo on the album. You get the sense that Inhaler are on the verge of explosion. There is an underlying desperation to expel something into the world, and cement something about themselves. It is as though It Won’t Always Be Like This is something they needed to unleash into the world and a statement they needed to make. Now it’s out in the open, they’re free to leap headfirst into the chaos and fire they just unearthed. 

It Won’t Always Be Like This will be released this Friday on Polydor Records. Inhaler play Manchester’s Deaf Institute on Monday 16th August.  

Header image: Inhaler. Credit: Chuffmedia Press.