Continuing with the Mercury Prize, it is on to ‘Seventeen Going Under’ by Sam Fender.
Was completely sold with Fender after hearing his single ‘Dead Boys’ from his first album ‘Hypersonic Missiles’. I bought that EP and album on vinyl when it was available and have tried to get my hands on anything else I could since including the Record Store Day 7” ‘Alright’. When it was announced last year that he had a new album coming out I couldn’t preorder quickly enough.
’Seventeen Going Under’ is one of the albums that comes out in a variety of different limited edition colours to no doubt try and push it up the charts. You can get it on white marble which I picked up from the official store, red vinyl from Amazon, pale blue Indie Store Exclusive and, if you are willing to pay a massive markup, there is also a cracking picture disc floating about on eBay/Discogs. If you do some digging you can even get it in black!
This album is filled with rock songs about transitioning from boy to man and all the emotions that go along with it; rage, bravado, toxic masculinity. It also deals with death, mental anguish and difficult family relationships (hey, not every song can be about that warm, fuzzy feeling you get at the start of a relationship right?). Fender is great at looking inward and producing songs that hit hard.
If you haven’t heard Fender before (where have you been?) think The War On Drug or The National with a Geordie twang and massive Bruce Springsteen saxophones - I’m not doing him justice here, but you get the idea!
Tracks To Try: ‘Seventeen Going Under’, ‘’Aye’, ‘Get You Down’, ‘Spit Of You’, ‘The Dying Light’
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