If his 2019 debut announced Fender as a promising indie hopeful, the follow-up, Seventeen Going Under, confirmed his status as one of British rock’s leading lights. It was a record powered by a career-defining title track, a deeply moving reflection on a working-class upbringing in the North East destined to go down as one of the great rock hits of the 2020s. It remains just about the closest thing Tyneside has to its own national anthem.
How could Fender possibly follow a track like 'Seventeen Going Under'? The lead single and title track to People Watching suggested he was hoping for lightning to strike twice with another sequence of sonorous, hypnotic chord changes and more poetic lyrics about the everyday struggles many Tynesiders face. This time the chirpy guitar hook sounds perilously close to a mid-ranking 1975 hit, but Fender’s knack for bleakly beautiful depictions of his hometown would be enough to make even Matty Healy jealous. The bridge’s “Above the rain-soaked Garden of Remembrance / Kittiwakes etched your initials in the sky” is sublime even by Fender’s high standards.
It’s a relief, then, that the subsequent album doesn’t merely attempt to recreate ‘Seventeen Going Under’, but expands on its themes of deprivation in the North East and the distant politicians responsible for it. ‘Chin Up’ is one of many songs that devotes much of its time to painting deft character portraits of ordinary Geordies. “The cold permeates the neonatal baby”, he sings starkly, before finding parallels between Detroit’s urban decay and Byker Bridge in ‘Crumbling Empire’. It might all sound rather doom and gloom on paper, but warm beds of layered guitars and a steady tide of lush strings sections drench this record in a delicate beauty. The people Fender describes are suffering, yes, but in those soaring melodies there’s a sense that their hope is unextinguishable.
Complicating this album about poverty is Fender’s own unescapable wealth and fame. “I won’t take this world for granted”, he assures us at one point, whilst devastating closer 'Remember My Name' - which poignantly features the Easington Colliery Brass Band - reminisces Fender's own council house upbringing. Most fascinating is ‘TV Dinner’ with its sinister piano manoeuvres that evoke Radiohead’s other-worldly classic ‘Everything in Its Right Place’. “Grass-fed little cash cow”, Fender calls himself in a blistering vocal performance, as a fog of electronics and strings steadily engulf him. It’s a thrillingly dark composition which, for once, defies Fender’s usual comparisons to Springsteen and hints at an intriguing possible direction for album four.
Massive, raspy sax solos and an atmosphere of nostalgia remain Fender’s biggest draw, however. ‘Arm’s Length’’s harmonies may sound unadventurous, but they lend the song a muted, sepia sheen, playing out like a half-forgotten memory. Most of People Watching’s songs pick a timeless chord progression and blissfully wallow in it for an unhurried five minutes, a formula which Fender has now honed.
For all the lyricism about decay, regret and fear, the overriding quality of People Watching is staggering beauty. “These purple days left a violent mark on the oak tree hollow”, Fender offers on glorious standout ‘Nostalgia’s Lie’, nailing his trademark balance of piercing sorrow and dewy-eyed wistfulness. The melodies feel inevitable, and Fender’s honeyed vocal tone has never sounded sweeter. Equally remarkable is ‘Little Bit Closer’, an awe-inspiring stadium rock triumph about finding God, complete with one of the most nagging chorus hooks you’ll hear all year. “I can’t live under the notion that there’s no reason at all for all this beauty in motion,” the spine-tingling group vocals belt. After listening to an album as deeply beautiful as this one, you'd tend to agree.