Sam Fender’s message gets lost amid hazy production on People Watching

Of late, Sam Fender has seemed to be 30 going under. As he was rocketed into the head-spinning, highly pressurised sphere of festival headline sets, hometown stadium shows and voice-of-a-generation expectations by the platinum success of his 2021 second album Seventeen Going Under, personal cracks became deep fissures. In 2022 he cancelled remaining dates on a US tour to focus on his mental health. Since then, he’s played short tours and marquee events, maintaining his momentum without pushing himself too hard.

And such, three years later, is the sound of his third album, People Watching. Fender’s fame is built on a (slightly questionable) rep as the North Shields Springsteen, drenching Tyneside trials and tenderness in big sky bombast. Now, to further submerge his Geordie soul in the dusty, top-down sounds of heartland USA, he’s turned to The War On Drugs’ Adam Granduciel as a key co-producer, and it’s a disaster.

Granduciel is renowned for summoning a hazy, indistinct, narcotic half-memory of the sort of American drivetime rock that Fender aspires to, and the poor lad gets swallowed up by it. The opening title track is by far the brightest and liveliest here, telling of the death of Fender’s beloved mentor Annie Orwin in tones of synth-rock glory. But Granduciel’s dreamlike sepia-rock approach gives the track the slick, formulaic feel of “The Boys of Summer” rather than any E Street punch. And it gets much duller from there.

As much as Fender bares his tattered heart and sketches the pride and poverties of his country and community as artfully as ever, the songwriting plods more than it ricochets, while the floatation tank production cushions and smothers his passion, highlighting any existing blandness. “Nostalgia’s Lie” sets his hometown memories in a glossy folk-rock aspic, more Blunt than Boss. “Chin Up” tackles the realities of drug addiction while sounding like “Wonderwall” gone damp. Beyond Oasis and The War on Drugs themselves, the sonic mood board of tracks such as “Arm’s Length”, “Crumbling Empire” and the religion-baiting “Little Bit Closer” contains The Waterboys, Hothouse Flowers, Foreigner, Bryan Adams, maybe The Killers if drained of all personality and pizzazz, leaving only the pomp.

These are the sort of expensive, water-treading songs that AI could be writing tomorrow; in fact, were you to casually mention “The Cars” to a friend while it was playing – and well you might – you wouldn’t be surprised if the lyrics changed to try to subliminally flog you a Kia.

After a near full-album dip, things pick up significantly in the final third. “Rein Me In”, concerning a drunken breakup, is built around some vivifying junk piano and Coldplay arpeggios. The darkly fascinating “TV Dinner” stands out like a Guggenheim in a swamp, with its sci-fi synth sizzle, shivering poetry, austere orchestrations and trip-hop edge. “Something Heavy” is a rare display of country pop catchiness. And the record closes with “Remember My Name”, a moving and heartfelt tribute to Fender’s lost grandparents on which he contemplates mortality backed by a sensitive and resonant colliery band.

There’s nothing here with anything like the gritty thrill of a “Howdon Aldi Death Queue”, but when Fender’s honesty, belief and anguish cuts through the cloying haze, there’s still promise. Otherwise, everyone’s just killing time.