Sam Fender, the burden of being compared to a young Springsteen

Exactly five years ago it came out “Hypersonic Missiles”the first album of Sam Fendera 23-year-old from the north of England who has been hailed by industry media as having a very similar musical affinity to Bruce Springsteen and by the public with the first position in the English charts. What you can read below is our review of that album.

Listen to “Hypersonic Missiles” and you understand why Sam Fender has often been compared to a young Springsteen: when the song opens, it sounds like the E Street Band of “The Rising”, complete with sax at the end. But his voice betrays his 23 years, and his accent reveals his English origins: he was born on April 25, 1996 in North Shields, Newcastle, in the north-east of England. He has been talked about a lot in the last two years, from his debut single “Play God” in 2017, to his nomination in the BBC Sound of 2018, the important annual ranking of new names to watch in English music, to his signing with Universal.

We know how it works, music from across the Channel: very high expectations are built on new names, who are then often burned at the first mistake. This is not the case with Sam Fender, who already at the second song shakes off that cumbersome comparison: “The borders” looks instead to 80s rock, and the mind runs to War On Drugs and Ryan Adams. Of course, the world is always the same, classic American rock. But not only that: in another song, “That sound”, there are echoes of the 80s, but the English ones, with a vintage Cure riff.

But Sam Fender goes beyond these references: the album shows excellent writing and arrangement skills – especially when it is minimal, and it happens several times. The best is “White privilege” is practically only voice and guitar, and the sound is perfect to tell the blind rage that pervades extremist bubbles. There is also a lighter side: Fender does not forget that he is 23 years old, and it is perhaps in these moments that he most resembles the young Boss: “Tonight, these streets are heaving/With young hearts on the chase/We’ll have this place on lockdown/It’s here for you to taste”, he sings in “You’re Not The Only One”.

The album closes, not surprisingly, with an intense live interpretation of “Use”, to demonstrate that he knows his stuff in that department too, as befits a rocker. In short: good start. It’s too early to say whether Sam Fender is a “big thing”; for the moment we are faced with an excellent rock debut: that’s already great news.