No Frills Reviews

The Geordie star shoots for greatness but falls short by too often forcing the issue

As a Tynesider, I think Sam Fender is supposed to stir some sense of local pride in me, but his music often leaves me cold in spite of, or perhaps because of, its familiarity. His act largely revolves around repurposing Bruce Springsteen’s American heartland rock storytelling for a British audience; where the cultural touchstones are less Atlantic City and Badlands, more Aldi and Poundland. At the heart of this is Fender as the Geordie boy done good. It’s certainly a good thing that we still have someone at his level putting a working class perspective into the mainstream; but there’s a point where the hometown homages begin to border on patronising. It’s not so much a question of Fender’s authenticity, rather an over-reliance on it. Despite flashes of brilliance on People Watching, it can sometimes feel like he sacrifices storytelling for sentimentality. 

The opening third of the album sees Fender contrast his successes with the struggles of those he grew up around. On the title track, returning home to be met with the realities of death and crumbling infrastructure represents the fading of youthful hope and innocence. Lyrically, it’s some of his best work as he interweaves personal heartache and social commentary, with overarching introspection, while showcasing a poetic flair with lines like “Just the beauty of youth would quell my aching heart”. But its soundtrack of by-the-numbers Springsteen bombast via the road-trip rock of War on Drugs (whose Adam Granduciel is the album’s co-producer) feels out of place. The attempt at anthemic grandiosity obscures the power of his writing, leaving it sounding overwrought.

Although the overt Springsteen affectations are relatively sparse, in favour of country-tinged Americana, some of the production choices continue to do Fender a similar disservice. His writing is self-aware, observational, and empathetic as he questions rose-tinted notions of nostalgia, reflects on his own entitlement, and charts the tortured routine of a homecoming binge session. But as strings swell, choruses repeat, and 4-minute songs become 6-minute songs, it all feels a bit too contrived and, frankly, boring. Fender would have been better served dipping into the Nebraska section of his Springsteen playbook for more stripped-back arrangements. The tendency towards self-consciously epic excess manages to make his emotional vulnerability sound trite.

Fender’s writing is the album’s greatest strength for the most part, but has its flaws too. The way that he introduces real-life characters can occasionally feel tokenistic. On Crumbling Empire he documents the hardships of his parents as emblematic of a country failing the people that make it. Or the superfluous reference to Amy Winehouse in the critique of ‘build them up to tear them down’ celebrity culture on TV Dinner. I don’t doubt his sincerity in emphasising the human impact of systemic issues, but the way in which characters are reduced to down-on-their-luck victims leaves them feeling like one-note cliches rather than fleshing out their humanity.

That Winehouse reference highlights another bugbear. On a track which otherwise teems with Fender’s anger, his choice of phrasing is off-putting. This criticism may only make sense if you’re from the north-east, but it’s as if he takes on the voice of a 60-year-old grandparent when he says “she was just a bairn”. The use of a well-worn colloquialism almost seems designed to add regional specificity and down-to-earth charm, but comes across oddly generic and forced; a kind of performative Geordie-ness.

While Fender’s ambitious attempts to combine interpersonal sketches with wider social context are admirable and occasionally excellent, the album’s best moments come where he narrows his focus. Arm’s Length is probably the album’s lowest stakes moment and all the better for it. A breezy, bittersweet ode to the comfort in the brief connection of a one night stand. Returning to the theme on Something Heavy, he reveals the darker undercurrents driving the need for that connection. Album closer and highlight, Remember My Name, could well have crossed into the territory of melodramatic schmaltz however it’s a case of addition by subtraction. It may have some stirring string-accompaniment, but it’s a rare example on the album that isn’t varnished with unnecessary layers. It really allows Fender’s words to take centre stage and speak for themselves on a beautiful, highly personal tribute.

People Watching is almost a great album, on paper; a portrait of an ascending star still bound by his roots, showcasing how that shapes him for better and worse. But, in practice, it too often falls flat. Fender and his producers’ attempts to squeeze emotional resonance out of every moment conspire to have the opposite effect. He may still have a masterpiece in him yet, but to achieve that he perhaps needs to stop trying so hard to make a masterpiece.

Best tunes: Arm’s Length, Remember My Name

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