Album reviews: Olly Alexander – Polari and Inhaler
★★☆☆☆
It's strange to consider Polari as Olly Alexander's debut solo album, but so goes the latest career step for the former Years & Years frontman. Having first risen to fame with the band behind 2015's synth-pop hits 'King' and 'Shine', he officially ditched the moniker last year and now, here we are.
Alexander's career arc has been bumpy, to say the least. Amid the split from his bandmates, he found critical acclaim as lead character Ritchie in Russell T Davies' wonderful Channel 4 drama It's a Sin, having previously dabbled with minor roles in shows such as Skins, the brilliant Keats biopic Bright Star and Jack Black's 2010 flop Gulliver's Travels.
His music projects have been more scattershot. Years and Years's third and final album Night Call – made without co-founders Mikey Goldsworthy and Emre Türkmen – failed to match the success of its predecessors. Meanwhile, his valiant attempt at Eurovision with single 'Dizzy' landed the UK in 18th place, amid controversy over the presence of Israel in the annual song contest.
When it comes to Polari, Alexander has the basis of some great ideas but lacks the conviction to carry it off. Occasionally (and similar to Night Call), it feels like he's grasping for the kind of queer-centric alt-pop or R&B that Perfume Genius, serpentwithfeet and Christine and the Queens excel at – or indeed the in-your-face brashness of Charli XCX. More often than not, though, this record stumbles at the first hurdle.
Produced by PC Music's Danny L Harle (Dua Lipa, Liam Gallagher), it's got all the ingredients you'd expect on an Eighties-influenced record, with synths that alternately stab, buzz and sprawl in deference to pioneers such as Pet Shop Boys and Erasure. It's pastiche, a farrago of half-baked ideas, even veering into Noughties club territory on occasion, which suggests Alexander and Harle are going through a checklist rather than carrying out any clear artistic vision.
With his songwriting, too, he quails when approaching themes of closeted sex, yearning, sexual tension and loneliness in the gay community. The album is named after the language created from bits of Italian, Romani, Cockney rhyming slang and Yiddish, used by travelling entertainers in the 19th century and later adopted by gay men around the Fifties and Sixties. All subjects that should thrill but in Alexander's hands manage to sound rather dull. There's an endeavour at storytelling on the Vince Clarke-produced 'Make Me a Man', delivered over a buzzy electronic beat and twee acoustic guitar riffs. The overall effect, though, is more akin to Steps' '5, 6, 7, 8' being thrown in a blender with 'Freedom!' by George Michael than Clarke's more experimental productions.
Elsewhere, I'm desperate for more insight than we hear on the single 'Cupid's Bow', on which he sings: 'You've done somethin' to me/ And I love the way it feels/ But maybe I just don't know what I want.' 'Shadow of Love' is marginally better: a moody, dungeon-clank and synth-jab of a tune about craving the slightest taste of a romantic connection (I adore the deliberate stumble as he asks, 'Love me once and then fu-forget about me'), yet he's so fixated on that title refrain it sounds like he's stuck on repeat. Polari is brash and bold on the surface, but Alexander flails when searching for something truly profound to say.
Inhaler – Open Wide
★★★★☆
The musical nepo baby can only get so far without talent or drive. That Inhaler frontman Elijah Hewson, son of U2's Bono, is still here, releasing his third – and most satisfying – album with the Dublin-formed band is enough proof, then, that he has plenty of both.
Open Wide is indeed full of ambition, heaving with slick-sounding anthems that are ripe for a mass singalong. 'Billy (yeah yeah yeah)' cruises along a summery guitar groove and rippling percussion, backed by nice harmonies and Hewson's reverb-soaked croon. 'Even Though' deploys a dark, Cure-inspired bass line while the singer adopts a Robert Smith drawl. 'Your House' buzzes with paranoia as it explores the obsessive nature of young love.
In a recent interview with The Independent, Hewson said this record reflects what he dubs his quarter-life crisis, as he starts to contemplate past decisions, both good and bad. 'Again' wrestles with the notion of parenthood, written from the perspective of someone living in rock'n'roll Neverland.
Opener 'Eddie in the Darkness' careens around a piano motif before flailing into the chorus, as its title character stumbles through emptying bars. Our review of Inhaler's 2021 debut lamented that it leant too heavily on lyrical cliches and the classic rockers of old. Open Wide melds the confidence of youth with the poise that comes from experience. It's the sound of a band who've truly come into their own.
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