Polydor Records
Release Date: 13th September 2019
I know I’m over a month late to the party but it would be hard not to talk about this album with Sam Fender mania sweeping the North East.
It’s been quite the month for Sam Fender, a number one album followed up by announcing huge gigs at the Utilita Arena here in Newcastle. There has even been talk of potential gigs at St. James’ Park it’s fair to say that Sam Fender is now amongst the biggest alternative artists in the country.
But is all the hype deserved: the short answer is definitely yes. The album starts with the title track, an arena ready song made to be performed live with smart socially relevant lyrics which perfectly combine. Despite this, one drawback is the ‘oh’ lines which feel forced in there to create a festival singalong which isn’t really needed when the song is so dramatic already.
‘The Borders’ and ‘White Privilege’ are both excellent painting Fender as modern day Geordie Springsteen, the catchy riff in ‘The Borders’ shows off the singer songwriter’s talent, immediately distancing himself from the array of acoustic guitar wielding artists, which are all over the radio like a plague of flesh eating locusts feasting on the corpse of originality.
‘White Privilege’ is lyrically the best on the album performed for the majority in one continual verse flowing like a rap or poem, confronting difficult social issues in an incredibly self aware way making this a great song for finding a unique spin on commentary.
The excellent social commentary continues on ‘Dead Boys’, which confronts male suicide in a heartfelt way whilst ‘You’re Not the Only One’ changes up the sound of the album adding in a drum machine creating the vibe of a sped up version of Iggy Pop’s ‘Nightclubbing’. Overall, this gives the song a welcome change to the rest of the album with it’s pulsating beat which sounds very different to the rest of the album of which, there is little variation from the core indie sound.
‘Play God’s looping guitars are effective in reflecting the dystopian narrative of the song lyrics and proving another excellent single showing off Fender’s talent of writing pop songs with an indie twist. This continues in ‘That Sound’ with a thunderous chorus and pounding guitar riffs forcing home the heaviest song on the album in triumphant fashion.
‘Saturday’ continues the anthemic nature of the album with yet another effective future singalong. This flows into ‘Will We Talk’, which is a far more bittersweet song with a beautiful underlying melancholy to the tune despite keeping an energetic outer shell of guitars and violins.
‘Two People’ is the most similar to an Ed Sheeran type song expected from most male singer songwriters having the vibe of ‘The A Team’ with an electric twist whilst delivering another amazing set of lyrics. The album takes a downwards turn on ‘Call Me Lover’, a very poppy song, that is not necessarily a bad thing but amongst this album stands out as cliche and repetitive.
However, the next song, ‘Leave Fast’ is the best song that Fender has released to date. It is hard to describe just how perfect this song is, the riff is beautiful and brims with emotion, which combines well with the perfect lyrics revolving around the monotonous struggle of living in a small town and the inability to separate yourself from it. The song is easily the best on the album.
‘Use – Live’ is a change up from the rest of the album if a little baffling described as being there to prove that he can perform well live which gives the impression of the album being more of a CV to the audience than an album of songs. Despite this, the song is a nice switch up from the formula of the album with the guitars ditched in favour of a piano and Fender providing a strong vocal performance to finish off the album.
Overall, I really like this album, it’s a really strong starting point highlighting Fender as an extremely good lyricist combining social commentary in an effective unpatronizing way. However, I do feel as though the lyrics are stronger than the music which is backing it up.
Whilst the music is good I feel like it is a little tame in some areas considering the content of the lyrics. This is mainly nitpicking however and overall this is a really solid debut backing up the hype of the North Shields artist.
Humbug North East 
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