Sam Fender has set the scene for his upcoming UK and European tour by teasing a section of a widely anticipated new single titled ‘People Watching’, signalling the imminent full release of the track that fans of the North Shields artists have only heard in a handful of live performances. Fender set the anticipation building with a mysterious countdown on his website counting down to a release at midnight on Wednesday 13th November.
Since his debut, Fender has released two critically acclaimed albums and garnered multiple awards, including the Brit Award for Best British Alternative/Rock Act. His 2019 “Hypersonic Missiles” was praised by NME for “documenting small-town frustration, which is why he means so much to so many people”.
In 2021, the singer-songwriter released “Seventeen Going Under” which reached Number One in the UK, and was nominated for the Mercury Prize. The LP was also named Best Album In The World at the NME Awards 2022.
Fender has never shied away from tackling social issues in his music. His debut album addresses topics such as “kids in Gaza” and male suicide, while “Seventeen Going Under” reflects on the loss of youth and tumultuous adolescence in what NME describe as a “brilliant portrayal of Fender’s youth that’s full of violence”.
“Figuring out where the hell to go after [‘Seventeen Going Under’] took some working out but I got there in the end,” Fender wrote in a post on Instagram, but fans expect the new album to be similarly raw. In the same post, Fender confirms Adam Granduciel work on Fender’s upcoming LP which was hinted at in a post in March.
Of “Seventeen Going Under”, Fender noted that the pandemic influenced the introspective and isolation themes seen on the album, motifs that appears to carry over in some of the lyrics shared as part of the preview of “People Watching”: “I people watch on the way back home/ Envious of the glimmer of hope/ Gives me a break from feeling alone/ Gives me a moment out of the ego. I used to feel so invincible/ I used to feel there was a world worth dreaming of/ Back of the gasworks screaming the song/ Just the beauty of youth would quell my aching heart.”
