Sam Fender - "Seventeen Going Under" (2021)

Earlier this year I went to see Sam Fender's Finsbury Park concert with some friends, and I had promised I would talk about this album, so I am finally getting round to doing it. I have to admit I wasn't initially onboard with Sam when he first broke through in 2019 with a couple of indie-lite, pop rock tunes being Will We Talk and Hyper Sonic Missiles. The bland chipper 'will you go home with me' lyrics and The Strokes reminiscent riff of the former felt very 'just-indie-enough' for daytime Radio 1, and the banal political commentary of the latter felt so tame and obvious. I decided I didn't need to check out his debut album, which was a shame as there is some pretty good tunes on it. My interest only really developed after the release of the lead single and title track of this record, his second. The song is very much a grower, being an earnest Springsteen-esque heartland rock epic about the trials and tribulations of growing up in a dead-end backwater UK town (in Sam's case it's his hometown of North Shields but it could apply to anywhere). The song is paced brilliantly, as each line of each verse builds the tension further, but there isn't actually a chorus to release that tension. Therefore you are left on a knife edge until the very end of the song where Sam howls "I'm seventeen going under" amidst swelling sax and roaring guitars. The song is so well written that you might not even notice this, as every line of the song is catchy and relatable enough to be the hook.

It opens up the record perfectly and the first half of the tracklist very much follows in its footsteps - albeit with more conventional song structures. Sam paints himself as an earnest everyman, not shying away from his darker side and his own troubles, but also not indulgently self-deprecating for the sake of edginess. The tracks a built off driving rhythm sections and roaring guitars, akin to Springsteen or U2, feature cathartic sing-along choruses, and build to their climaxes with soaring strings and swooning sax. The particular highlights are Getting Started and Get You Down. The joyous and resolute chord sequence and catchy as all hell chorus of Getting Started is like a shot of serotonin straight to the brain, whereas Get You Down's thoughtful lyrics reflecting on the impact Sam's past mistakes have had on a loved one are equally as gripping.

It's only at the midpoint where the record begins to slow down, with the back-to-back Spit Of You and Last To Make It Home. Spit Of You is a slower cut, replacing the roaring guitars for a jangly acoustic while Sam lays bare his troubled and difficult relationship he has with his father, and his yearning for are more honest and emotional connection with him. It's a heartfelt and relatable cut that really brings the album back down to Earth after the anthemia of the first half. Last To Make It Home slows it down even further, being a piano ballad about feeling lost in life, being the last to leave the bar at close and trying to seek validation and connection through social media. Sam sings it with such earnestness that it feels quite moving, although at over five minutes with only two verses and a long drawn out chorus it can drag a little.

Not all the songs here are introspective and personal tales, as like on his debut there are a couple of political tunes on here as well. And similarly to Hypersonic Missiles they don't really hit the mark. Aye is a wordy and driving rant on the untouchable powers that be behind the curtain of our elected political leaders, but in some ways it's too wordy for its own good - as in the first verse it stretches all the way from Boudica to Jeffery Epstein. I get the point of what Sam is saying here (being that these powers have always been in place) but it makes the song lack focus and it just descends into political disenfranchisement and nihilism, but it doesn't have any rallying hook or message to get behind to counter it. Another gripe I have with the song is that the driving guitars build and build tension, and when you think all that tension is going to explode into a pit worthy guitar solo or breakdown the track just kind of ends out the blue. Similarly Long Way Off's message of 'I think I'm on the right side but were still a long way off where we need to be' is again so banal and vague. Looking into the track, it's about the progressive abandonment of certain UK working class communities by Labour in the 2010's, which is a meaty topic, but Sam doesn't delve into it with any real depth, instead opting for the 'we need to think less rigidly and black and white' platitude.

The back half of the record very much follows on from the aesthetics of the first half, and so there aren't all that many surprises on it. There's a slow-burning ballad in the form of Mantra, and another driving anthemic cut being Paradigms. This song is definitely the most forgettable on the record, with the driving guitars, Sam's earnest delivery and climax of strings and sax pretty played out by this point on the record and I feel the bonus track Better Of Me should've made the cut instead (as it is easily the best of the bonus tracks and a real change of pace with its stripped back approach and warbling synth lines). The Leveller is a highlight of the second half with its pummelling drums and more immediate punky energy; as is the closer The Dying Light. It is another heart wrenching piano ballad in ode to the friends that he's lost to suicide, alongside the men he sees drinking their sorrows away in his hometown, as well as his own fears about the future and bringing children into the world where these cycles of generational trauma never seem to be broken. The track slowly brings itself out of this depression as Sam decides to not give in to the hopelessness the sake of his family and friends - both the ones he has lost and the ones that are still there with him.

Seventeen Going Under is a good, sometimes great album, that is a real step up from his debut. He's at his best when he's telling personal tails of relatable struggles, which is thankfully the majority of this record. I am a little concerned, however, of where Sam can go from here as the title track is by far the best track he has ever written and I'm not sure he can top it. Similarly, his style and aesthetic begins to wear out it's welcome by the end of the record (the bonus tracks, bar Better Of Me, are pretty unremarkable and I'm glad they weren't included on the main album), so only time will tell if he has enough good songs of this style in him to fill out a third record with the same quality.

Top Tracks: Seventeen Going Under, Getting Started, Get You Down, Spit Of You, The Leveller, The Dying Light

7/10

black midi - "Hellfire" (2022)

Following straight on from last years Cavalcade, black midi are back with their 3rd record, Hellfire. The band claimed that 'if Cavalcade was a drama, Hellfire is an action movie', and that certainly is the case with all of the elements that made up that record returning but with supercharged intensity and ferocity. The complicated, technical grooves that build the base of their sound are here, alongside the fusions of classical and jazz instrumentation that Cavalcade brought along - but is all brought forward in a much more immediate and forceful way. The record is two tracks longer than Cavalcade yet is nearly four minutes shorter, so it doesn't have time to ebb and flow in the same way as that album. It's a breakneck rollercoaster to the finish. 

The most obvious change to create this sense of immediacy is the approach to lyrics and themes. This is the first time a bm record has presented its ideas so blatantly, with the stories these tracks tell actually intelligible - as opposed to the obtuse doom propheteering of Cavalcade and the general psychotic ramblings of Schlagenheim. The titular intro track spells out all that Hellfire is, being the grim reality of mortality and death, the graphic brutality of war and the ideas of sin and damnation that try to make sense of all the madness. 

The more upfront lyrics of the album combined with the sprint to the finish pace make it probably the most accessible bm record of the three, with the tracks on the first half of the record just rolling into each other with no room to let up. Following on from the intro track, Sugar/Tzu opens with a theatrical sporting announcement before exploding straight into pummelling arpeggios and bombastic horns - reinforcing the themes of the trivialisation of war through viewing it as some kind of game where personal glory can be gained. The end of the song crashes straight into Eat Men Eat, a less brutal but just as tense track sung by bassist Cam Picton. The sinister flamenco groove of the song perfectly matches the creepy and graphic tale of mutiny and food poisoning as a mine captain tries to poison his workers to produce stomach acid to be the secret ingredient in has wine production. It's graphic and weird and reminds me of those slightly traumatising kids stories you'd see on CBBC in the 2000's (obscure reference, I know).

This then bombards straight into Welcome To Hell, the lead single and anchor for the albums themes. Geordie Greep plays the role of a WW1 recruitment / training officer, luring in the character of Tristan Bongo to sign up with tales of glory and adventure, before revealing his true intentions about using him purely as a tool to kill others in the 'game of war' and descending into abuse and eventually discharging him for not withstanding the trauma and developing PTSD. Musically it is perhaps the most refined of the bm cacophonous walls of sound / pummel your face off type tracks which matches the vocal delivery from Greep perfectly. Still is the first time the album lets up, and after the intensity of instrumentation and lyrics of the first four tracks it is a necessary breather. Lyrically it is the most lightweight on the record, being a mere breakup song - as opposed to the traumatising horrors of humanity thus far. It has a country twang to it and there's a particular part towards the end where it progresses into a kind of barn dance breakdown that I really like and wish lasted longer than a couple pf bars. As much as I like Still, it does feel at odds with what comes before and after it in the record. Where every other song is about the traumatic depths of humanity, Still is just a kind of sad but generally calm and unemotional breakup tune.

Half Time brings back the sporting themes from Sugar/Tzu and signals the transition to the back half of the record, which unfortunately doesn't grip me like the first half. The Race Is About To Begin picks up the story of Tristan Bongo after Welcome To Hell, where he descends into a gambling addiction betting on horses. The song has musical similarities and call backs to that track, which in my opinion means it struggles to set itself apart in its first phase. As the track progressive, Greep's vocals descend into this staccato semi-rapped / semi spoken word delivery reminiscent of a horse racing commentator; and while it does distinguish it from Welcome To Hell, it feels a little gimmicky and the track as a whole goes on way to long. On every listen for me, Dangerous Liaisons and The Defence slide into background, they're just fairly unremarkable compared to the front end of the record and black midi in general. They follow the same themes as the rest of the record, with more of a religious slant dealing in temptation and sin and hypocrisy. Perhaps it's just the sheer bombardment of words and ideas of the record up to this point that I am just desensitised to the themes by this point.

27 Questions Closes out the record and one again brings back some of the lost intensity with thunderous pianos and crashing percussion, sounding like some kind of march towards inevitable death. Which is what the song is about as the protagonist escapes awful weather out in town one night in a free admission show by the character Freddie Frost, a washed up actor making his last play about his life's achievements as he is on deaths door. The whole first half feels sinister and foreboding as the play tries to dress up Freddie Frost as a grand and accomplished figure, before the second half completely unravels it. It's sung from the perspective of Freddie, and becomes the play he has written, which he finishes off by listing off his 27 questions about 'life the universe and everything', completely demolishing the fake grandeur of the performance, declaring it pointless and farcical in the face of death, becoming completely self-deprecating before he drops dead on stage before he could even finish his 27 questions. I am really mixed on the track, as I get what it's trying to do, and I really love the musicality of the first half. But the flip to Freddie's perspective both musically pushes the theatricality of the album just a little over the edge into a territory I can't really take seriously, and also feels like the record descends into that kind of sixth form 'nihilism = clever' territory.

I guess that's my biggest problem with the record when compared to Cavalcade. As the lyrics and themes are more prominent this time around, its more easy to see that when you strip back the technical musicianship and wordy, meaty lyrics, its just plain nihilism. And while there's a place for it in music, dressing it up as something more profound than it actually is does rub me the wrong way a little. It gives off that 'look I'm more clever than you' vibe. Cavalcade was more patient, and more mysterious and wonderous, and more consistent. That being said, I very much enjoy the first few tracks here, musically and lyrically; and on the whole I'd take it over the somewhat shock value allure of Schlagenheim.

7/10

Top Tracks: Hellfire, Sugar/Tzu, Eat Men Eat, Welcome To Hell, Still