Sam Fender ‘People Watching’ review: Darkness on the Edge of Toon

Ever since Sam Fender emerged at the tail end of the noughties to begin a journey that now sees him begin 2025 as a bonafide stadium star, comparisons with Bruce Springsteen have followed the prodigious Geordie star at every turn.

It’s evident in the sax-flecked stadium songs capable of bringing crowds to their knees every night, but more deeply in his emotional stories about the reality of growing up in a Tyneside fishing town where the locals directly feel the impact of being left behind by those at the top of the tree. Rock anthems about ruinous benefits assessments don’t come along very often, but that’s exactly what Fender achieved on ‘Seventeen Going Under’ – the title track of his second album.

That fire in his belly continues to burn brightly on his third album People Watching, although the tempered observations of individual lives and people refusing to be knocked down feels acutely like late ’70s Springsteen. To put it another way, it’s Fender’s very own Darkness on the Edge of Toon.

“I promised her I’d get her out of the care home, the place was fallin’ to bits,” he offers on the soaring title track. It’s ostensibly a rock anthem, but it packs an extra punch when you learn that it’s a tribute to the late Annie Orwin, a woman described by Fender as his surrogate mother.

Similarly, ‘Crumbling Empire’ will invite you in with warm classic rock sounds, but – as the title suggests – its all too familiar tales of people facing the struggle of living in a land where nothing works have the ability to impressively blindside you.

There’s a new sonic palette of sorts to be found here too. If Seventeen Going Under saw Fender grabbing our attention at breakneck speed, this third album is more considered, with stadium rock being pitted against slower, but still impactful moments. The whirring rhythms of ‘Wild Long Lie’, a song about returning home, and ‘Rein Me In’ feel strangely indebted to Lindisfarne – the Geordie folk icons who Fender loves so much he made a documentary about them. Elsewhere, he’s pulled in help on production from The War On Drugs’ Adam Granduciel – a man no stranger to playing the biggest of rooms and who has no doubt helped hone the overall feel that this is bigger than anything than Fender has ever done before.

These tales reach their apex on the closer ‘Remember My Name’ – a deeply personal ballad written from the perspective of Fender’s grandfather while he was looking after his grandmother when she was battling dementia. It’s a slow-burning epic and a strong contender for the most heartbreaking song Fender has ever written. So much so, in fact, you’d reasonably suggest that the strongest of flood barriers are installed outside his stadium gigs this summer.

All considered, it’s an album that reflects Fender’s incredible skill of, err, People Watching, and turning what he finds into songs that can subtly – and broadly – break your heart. “I’m not preaching, I’m just talking,” he offers on ‘Crumbling Empire’. That’s true, but when what he’s saying is as frequently impactful as this, you’d be a fool not to listen. He may be one of the biggest stars in the UK, but on the showing of this album, it absolutely cements his position as one of our greatest too. The big leagues are where he truly belongs.