It feels like a million years ago at this point, but back in January Dublin’s Inhaler released one of the more searing alt-rock anthems of 2020 in “We Have To Move On“, and in a few weeks we firmly expect it to land on several Year In Review lists. But Elijah Hewson and the bois aren’t intent in resting on any best-of laurels, as they’ve today released a spiky new modern rock jam called “When It Breaks.”
The track was written by Inhaler over the summer, as the quarantine-fed unease of 2020 began to soak through our daily lives. The band’s hotly-anticipated North American tour, which included a sold-out show at ONCE Somerville, rescheduled and relocated to the larger Sinclair in Cambridge, was understandably scrapped.
“We wrote ‘When It Breaks’ in the last couple of months,” the band says in a statement. “Over lockdown we were floating around the instrumental demo, it was dark but also pretty hopeful sounding. When we went back to the studio over the summer and really got to put our heads together again, we felt like we had to write something about what was going on and how we felt about it. Coming off tour into lockdown was a huge adjustment for us after we had just got used to life on tour.”
Inhaler add: “At first, it was a welcome break but pretty soon we were dying to get back to any festival or any gig where we could get our fix! The lyrics and the music communicate the anxiousness of how we were all feeling and still are now a couple months later. It’s definitely the most politically driven song we’ve released so far. It’s our interpretation of this strange and imperfect world we’ve come to live in. Things are gonna change and we are gonna be there when they do.”
Inhaler will release their debut album sometime in 2021, we’re told. In the meantime, fire up “When It Breaks” below.