Inhaler, “Cuts & Bruises.”

Thanks in part to a royal bloodline, Dubliners Inhaler broke out in a big way at the end of the last decade, becoming one of the U.K.’s biggest rock bands. Besides frontman Elijah Hewson being Bono’s son, however, the group was going against the grain with its blend of guitar-led power pop and post-punk at a time when pop and hip-hop was (and continues to be) much more lucrative and popular on the charts, radio and streaming.

All those elements are still present on the quartet’s sophomore effort, Cuts & Bruises. Josh Jenkinson has just the right amount of angular and crunchy guitar licks to keep each song enjoyable. The rhythm section of bassist Robert Keating and drummer Ryan McMahon is powerful and steady. Hewson’s voice is charming and grainy enough to sound like rock and not pop. If you stripped back the instrumentation, he sounds a lot like his dad when he was younger. He also drops numerous references to specific times of day or week—perhaps as Easter eggs to someone he’s addressing. The album is sleekly produced.

What Inhaler lacks here, however, is fresh ideas, which is so common in music that it has a curse named after it. This, too, makes sense. Inhaler had years to craft its first statement on 2021’s It Won’t Always Be Like This. And as the band acknowledged in the lead-up to the release of Cuts and Bruises, these new songs were written on the spot as the four members jammed together in the same room between tours. Rather than waiting for ideas to strike and then growing them, Inhaler forced the issue.

What the band ended up with is some good songs, and some so-so ones that bridge this record.

The highlights include mid-tempo piano-tinged ballad “If You’re Gonna Break My Heart,” smartly, a single. Over twangy reverb-laden guitar and snappy bass, the piano playing is really the star here. It’s a sort of alt-country song, even lyrically. “If you’re gonna break my heart, smash it to pieces/ ‘Cause you’re not gonna need it as much as I do right now,” Hewson sings, later adding, “I showed you mercy/ You gave me murder.”

Rocker “Just To Keep You Satisfied” is a sonically strong start to the album, beginning wistfully with space synths and bass before drumming kicks in, and later joined by crunchy mid-’90s-style (think: Garbage’s “Stupid Girl”) guitar riffing. Hewson sings about waking up on a Monday morning, facing his demons and making up for previous mistakes (“Maybe I’ll be stronger…/ Maybe I’ll be faithful even if I was a cheat”). If you think you’ve heard the vocalizing that follows before, it could be because it sounds a lot like Bono on “Lady With the Spinning Head.”

“These Are The Days,” which Inhaler released earlier in 2022, recalls the alt-rock of the early aughts, like a more muscular version of Two Door Cinema Club before turning more dramatic. It features skittering guitar noodling, a bouncy and crunchy bass line and dopamine-inducing synth that swells in a cacophonous climax. “We can do anything we want/ For a while/ I think we’re gonna be OK,” Hewson proclaims, repeating the last line again as the music swells.

Album closer “Now You Got Me Where You Want Me” features crunchy bass playing by Keating as Jenkinson dances around it with higher-pitched fretwork. Hewson is clearly working through some angst in the lyrics—”Now you got me where you want me/ … Which is nowhere. I’ll be nowhere.”

The remaining songs are all serviceable, conveying a pang of longing, or hope, or regret. “Dublin In Ecstasy,” “Love Will Get You There,” “Perfect Storm,” “When I Have Her On My Mind” and others are shrouded in shimmering guitars, hazy synths and are well-produced. They’re pleasing on the ears but don’t offer anything different than what Inhaler or other bands of that ilk have made before. They’re not as strong. Perhaps Inhaler could have saved them for B-sides while waiting for inspiration to strike again.

The symphonic string embellishments on “The Things I Do” are noteworthy and make the album’s penultimate song stand out. For those around bands from New York’s alt-rock scene 20 years ago, it’ll make you long for sweatily dancing to Stellastarr* at basement clubs.

“You got to slow down, my friend/ Love will get you there …/ If you hold on,” Hewson sings on the LP’s second song in encouragement. That message, taken to heart, would have made this a stronger album.

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.