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Rating: Born in 1994, from North Shields (Newcastle, UK), Sam Fender is today the best songwriter of his generation for those who write, but not only.
After a stunning debut album, "Hypersonic Missiles" (2019), which unexpectedly catapulted him to the top of the UK charts, followed by the significant and substantial sophomore "Seventeen Going Under" (2021) which effectively established him as the most significant British artist on the rock scene (with sold-outs everywhere in the biggest arenas and festivals), now, after four years, comes the anticipated third work. The most difficult one.
Fender has carried from the beginning the heavy and annoying label of Geordie Springsteen. This is both for that recognizable sound easily associated with the Boss (see the massive presence of the saxophone in the first two albums), and for an innate ability to narrate everyday life with its difficulties and social issues.
Known thus for his ability to capture the rawest emotions of working-class life, he now takes another step forward.
The opening track (powerful, an anthem in every respect and the favorite of the undersigned, which also gives the album its title), is indeed a very personal song dedicated to the woman who was a second mother to the author.
Fender here tells of having returned home and gone to visit the said woman in the nursing home where she resides and having assisted her until the end.
"I promised I'd get her out of the care home..."
"...the place was fallin ' to bits
Understaffed and overruled by callous hands
The poor nurse was around the clock and the beauty of youth had left my breaking heart..."
"Oh, I stayed all night 'til you left this life".
Co-producing the album is Adam Granduciel from The War On Drugs (a long-time idol of Fender), and it shows, here and elsewhere on the record.
Following tracks like Wild Long Lie and Arm's Length reflect instead the pros and cons of the fame achieved and the struggle to stay connected and rooted to one's origins, not without falls.
And then, returning to social themes, Crumbling Empire stands out with its most beautiful lyrics.
"...my mother delivered most kids in this town
My step dad drove in a tank for the crown.
They left them homeless, down and out in their crumbling Empire".
"...twenty-five years on crack and dope
Begging to pay for synthetic hope
Just another kid failed by these blokes
And their crumbling Empire".
Chin Up and Nostalgia's Lie are the tracks that most differ from his more famous repertoire. The former closely approaches the post-Britpop atmospheres.
The ability to blend personal experiences with social narratives remains one of Fender's strengths.
There is great richness in the lyrics and a constant sense of nostalgia and melancholy at times combined with a sense of guilt for having made it and now living a reality that is different and far hundreds of kilometers away from that of his childhood friends.
Above all, there is in those who listen and have followed him from the beginning the awareness of maturity achieved.
Finally, an album whose content is not the usual banal triptych of 'ended loves/beginning loves/couple dynamics,' but a spotlight on the difficulties of living in this present under disadvantaged conditions.
In conclusion, "People Watching" cements Sam Fender's place among the most compelling voices in the British rock scene.
The album of maturity?
Perhaps. Certainly, it shows that we are not only facing a talented musician but also a talented writer with something important to say.
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