Sam Fender - Hypersonic music from England's Far East

Raised in a family of musicians and introduced to rock as a child, Sam Fender translates the sounds of America into a style all his own, telling tales of the dreams, despair and rage of provincial England. His repertoire is a hybrid one, where intimacy coexists with the grandeur of Springsteen-indebted stadium rock

by Fabio Ferrara

Sam Fender's early career has an old-fashioned feel to it: rather than relying on social media and modern promotional machinery to get his music heard, he chose the good old-fashioned slog. A relentless, continuous tour. First confined to his native United Kingdom, then without borders; first hosted by old pubs and welcomed by a small circle of fans, then greeted by ever-bigger venues and crowds.

Owen Davies, his future manager, discovered him playing acoustic guitar in a pub in North Shields, a town of "booze and fishing" in the North East of England. It was there that he had spent his entire life up to that point. He had scraped by with various odd jobs, even trying his hand as a bartender, in the very venue where his professional career would begin. Despite his young age, he had been through intense experiences in his teenage years: issues tied to his parents' separation, his mother losing her job due to health problems, and a very serious illness at the age of 20. And it's precisely this microcosm that forms the backdrop to his song lyrics: budding loves, episodes of bullying, a friend's suicide, his anger, his silences, his mother in tears over a rejected claim from the Department for Work and Pensions.

But while his memories are all tied to the city on the banks of the Tyne, the grandeur of Sam Fender's stadium rock is aimed squarely at the great America of Bruce Springsteen. It's to the Boss and all his transatlantic heirs that he directs his boundless admiration, thanks in part to his older brother Liam, who introduced him to music and rock. And it was within his brother's backing band that he began performing in small venues, joined on stage by some schoolmates with whom he had formed a band.

A few years after meeting Davies, in 2017, Fender decided to release his debut single "Play God", which met with a decent response and was also included in the tracklist of the famous football game "Fifa 19". But it would be the following year, with his first EP Dead Boys, that his name would start circulating more insistently on the British music scene. The title track is a very well-constructed song, with a soft intro and a stronger second half, propelled by driving drums and the fluid sound of electric guitars, which blend well with Fender's voice as he obsessively repeats the refrain. The track - a delicate reflection on the difficult subject of youth suicide - would also be nominated for the prestigious Ivor Novello Award for its lyrics. Special mention also goes to the EP's other single, "That Sound", on which Sam puts his foot on the accelerator in a flurry of distorted guitars, driven by a riff that lodges itself in the memory.

The album closes with "Leave Fast", a tender ballad in which the singer croons in a style that winks at the ever-present Jeff Buckley.

So it comes as no bolt from the blue that, the following year, his debut album Hypersonic Missiles would be a stunning success, going gold at home and earning a nomination at the 2020 Brit Awards for "Best New Artist". On this album, Fender revisits his most successful songs of the previous two years alongside new tracks that once again look to the great American musical tradition. Springsteen looms large again on the title track, driven by thunderous guitars and his deep voice before giving way to majestic saxophone solos.

The heartland-rock of "The Borders", with guitar work as fluid as that of War On Drugs but lacking their dreamlike power, shows Fender's interest in more modern productions too. "Will We Talk?", for instance, features a lively, syncopated riff, as if the Strokes had suddenly decided to cover Tom Petty.

Among the more socially engaged lyrics, special mention must go to the biting protest nursery-rhyme "White Privilege". There are some issues with pacing, weighed down both by a few underwhelming slow numbers ("Two People", "Leave Fast", "Use") and by some powerful, catchy tracks that are needlessly overwrought, indeed a touch bombastic (his first hit, "Play God").

Despite a few rough edges, the debut showcases Sam Fender's talent and personality, and it seems the time has finally come for him to enjoy his well-deserved success. After opening for Bob Dylan and Neil Young's Hyde Park concert, Sam put together a packed schedule to kick off his biggest tour yet, playing England's most important arenas in Spring 2020. The tour was meant to wrap up in Newcastle, the capital of his home county, to bring together all his day-one diehard fans. Unfortunately, though, the Covid pandemic would force organizers to cancel every date.

Sam, however, doesn't lose heart and heads back to North Shields, where it all began, to keep doing what he does best: writing songs. He records as many as 60 of them, then selects 11 to include on what would become his new album Seventeen Going Under.

Making the wait even sweeter was the release of the title track, which got heavy rotation on many radio stations: an excellent song by every measure, evoking his difficult adolescence. The North Shields singer doesn't structure the story of his 17th year in a conventional way, but reworks it through images, piecing together key memories. Musically, the song is built as a constant dialogue between a guitar part that betrays the English singer-songwriter's never-hidden admiration for War on Drugs, and a syncopated drum pattern that kicks in after about a minute. Embellished with a catchy, appealing melody, the track would prove a strong commercial success, despite decidedly dark and melancholy lyrics.

Less convincing is the second single, "Aye", conceived as a kind of anthem that throws a bit of everything together, from the crucifixion of Jesus to the Epstein scandal, all the way to the killing of John Lennon. Despite its ambitions, the track never really takes flight, lacking a refrain or any original arrangements. In general, Fender seems to be at his best when looking inward, digging into complicated personal relationships, rather than when he turns his gaze outward to tackle social commentary. The delicate balance of family life, in particular, is handled with a consistently sensitive and clear-eyed touch: on the tender ballad "Spit Of You", he speaks directly to his father, recounting the similarities between their temperaments and their difficulties communicating, before arriving at the dramatic image of the funeral service where Sam kisses his mother's body: "One day that will be your forehead that I'm kissing".

On another of the album's ballads, "Mantra", he instead speaks to himself, in a kind of self-analysis session where he tries to set himself imperatives for growth, to break free of the cycles he feels trapped in and finally fill the inner voids he's carried with him since childhood. Once again, it's the arrangements that elevate the song, with a horn section bursting in halfway through and carrying the guitar melody through to the end.

It's a shame that the freshness and originality of his lyrics aren't always matched by musical sophistication or a willingness to experiment. There are no bad songs on this album, but Fender often tends to settle into repetitive rhythms and structures. Yet sometimes it takes just a few small touches to elevate the quality of a track. A good example is the other single "Get You Down", whose opening seems to catapult us into a Killers album, until the contrast between saxophone and guitar brings us back to an entirely new dimension, sealing one of the album's most successful moments.

Once again, there's no shortage of references to his first love, Bruce Springsteen, whom Fender shamelessly pays tribute to on the closing "The Dying Light": a piano ballad that begins quietly with Sam singing about waifs and strays, comedy giants, penniless heroes ("This town is a world of waifs and strays/ Comedy giants, penniless heroes"), gradually gaining confidence, buoyed by an orchestra whose atmosphere recalls the E Street Band.

There's also a deluxe version of this album with five bonus tracks. On "Good Company", Fender, accompanied only by an acoustic guitar, shows off his vocal talents. On the others, the comparison with the Boss is even more obvious. This is perhaps still the limit that this second LP suggests the British singer-songwriter needs to overcome to establish himself once and for all. Fender certainly never lets his influences reduce to mere imitation, striving to forge his own personal style album after album; however, the references and citations are still too obvious, and risk making him look like the loser in the comparison with the originals, in terms of both charisma and innovation.

In this sense, the third album People Watching marks an important step in his maturation. With a production boasting the collaboration of Adam Granduciel of War On Drugs and of a producer with a dazzling résumé like Markus Dravs (Arcade Fire, Björk, Coldplay), Fender takes an important step forward, finding a definitive identity of his own, even when he draws on elements borrowed from others that have by now become inseparable from his style.

People Watching can indeed count on several quality tracks: the title track, already released last year, is one of those songs that can't leave you indifferent: powerful and shimmering, capable of filling the walls of a room just as easily as the vast space of an arena. And then there's the closer, "Remember My Name", a ballad that digs into the personal, dedicated to his grandparents. Here Fender sets aside all rhetoric to tell, with disarming sincerity, what it really means to go back to your roots. There, in that address quoted without filters ("11 Wark Avenue"), you can feel the weight of sacrifice, the deep sense of home, and perhaps also the reason why certain working-class-hero stories deserve to be sung. Between the overwhelming brilliance of "People Watching" and the intimacy of the album's epilogue, a path unwinds studded with songs that enrich the record with countless shades. There's a beating heart of expansive ballads ("Nostalgia's Lie", "Crumbling Empire") that might have benefited from a change of pace here and there to break up their linear flow, but they still find strength in melodies that intertwine naturally with the lyrics, letting the music wash over you slowly, without forcing anything. The piano, which pops up in more than one track, takes center stage in "TV Dinner". Here Fender shifts gears, turning his singing into a rapid flow of words, almost a stream of consciousness (or, perhaps more accurately, a stream of social grievances, given the lyrical content). The strength of "Arm's Length" is different, a solid, "down-to-earth" track, with no stadium anthems or bursts of social rhetoric: a classic piece of Springsteen-esque rock with a chorus that sticks in your head. With "Little Bit Closer", the English singer-songwriter again shows off his skill as a composer, with a perfect balance between guitar and harmonica alternating fluidly. "Rein On Me", on the other hand, reveals an unexpected folk side to Fender, with small guitar chords delicately weaving into the main melody. Ultimately, People Watching is strong enough to satisfy listeners looking for different things: those who want to hear classic rock that never feels dated, those seeking stage energy, and those who simply want to hear the voice of a singer-songwriter capable of going beyond the usual stories of troubled relationships, also engaging with social and political themes.

Contributions by Michele Corrado ("Hypersonic Missiles")