It’s fair to say the state of Britain the last few years has been pretty grim. Grassroots venues closing down at rapid rates, indicating the decline of culture, the cost-of-living-crisis has resulted in security tags being placed on boxes of butter and a rental crisis that’s not only suffocating young people’s creative pursuits but their ability to form community. This grey, withered, depressing depiction of Britain is the backdrop for Sam Fender’s third record ‘People Watching’, in which he views the lives of his loved ones and peers through the lens of someone who had the luck to escape the conditions of being working-class.
The themes on this record aren’t new to Fender, but the perspective in which he examines them has shifted. Both his debut, ‘Hypersonic Missiles’, and the Brit-nominated ‘Seventeen Going Under’ investigate British life with small details Fender has observed through his experiences as a working-class person. The difficulty now, though, is the fact Fender no longer exists within that position – instead, he’s outside of it, and ‘People Watching’ sees him grapple with that strange disconnect.
“I’m not preaching, I’m just talking / I don’t wear the shoes I used to walk in,” he admits on ‘Crumbling Empire’, a delicate track inspired by the poverty he saw on tour in the United States, one that reminded him of the long-lasting effects of Thatcherism on his own community in North Shields. Undoubtedly, his rapid rise to fame as a young adult has left him feeling somewhat existential, uprooted and disconnected. On ‘Nostalgia Lies’, he asks: “Can you take me back to somewhere, darling? / Where I feel safe?”.
In these snippets of vulnerability – seen too on the brilliantly energetic ‘Arm’s Length’ – he illuminates some discomfort he may have with himself and his place within his community. The Oasis-adjacent ‘Chin Up’ catches you off guard in its candour, where he admits he’s “entitled, idle and dumb, twenty-eight, still sucking my thumb”, before he delves into the horror of his old friends’ pain and their cocaine use. The folky ‘Wild Long Lie’ also touches on this topic, and sees Fender reflecting on how we slip into former versions of ourselves when we return to somewhere we once called home.
Fender’s effortlessly direct lyrics are the anchor that uphold him as a heavyweight within Britain’s indie rock scene. The closing tracks of the album – ‘TV Dinner’, ‘Something Heavy’ and ‘Remember My Name’, on which he is joined by Easington Colliery Band – see him reaching upwards with new sonic ambitions. ‘TV Dinner’ is the album’s pinnacle – a piano ballad in which his vocals spiral with panic as he laments celebrity culture and poverty.
Reflective, analytical and vulnerable, ‘People Watching’ does exactly what the title may suggest: takes stock of the characters, friends and loved ones who have made Fender the person he is today. He approaches each track with sensitivity as he looks back on his life so far – perhaps even with an inkling of guilt – and contemplates who he may be next.
