Cementing the influences of Sam Fender rather than the unique sound he provided on his sophomore album, Seventeen Going Under, latest track Wild Grey Ocean lays bare the creative spark. Bruce Springsteen was the obvious influence charted and chatted of so frequently after the release of Fender’s second album, but Wild Grey Ocean cements that. It is as close to Dancing in the Dark and the wistful visions of The Tunnel that the North East-born musician has offered so far. Interspersed with a personality and vibrancy that hits out at that eponymous grey ocean, this latest track feels like a well-crafted B-Side.
Nicely complimenting Seventeen Going Under and its quality, between Wild Grey Ocean and Alright, there is a statement of repetition. Is it that Fender’s tracks are familiar, or that they are consistently similar? Like all his other tracks, Wild Grey Ocean will bring out that Northern pride and the rock music associated with the area strikes through. Fender lays bare the influences of his past and marks a clean-cut adaptation of them, anywhere from Springsteen to Mark Knopfler. That latter North East legend’s influence can be heard intermittently throughout a track that drags Fender toward what will likely be his constant theme and musical game for some time. It is good to see him cement that now, while audiences are still getting to grips with his musical style.
It is clear to see why Wild Grey Ocean never quite made it onto Seventeen Going Under, if that is what its initial aim was in the first place. Slower in pace than the anthemic tracks on his second album, Fender’s originality strikes through against that great tide of influences to craft a track that has such real and fulfilling heart to it. As ever, his message and lyrical qualities are his strongest asset. There is a sincere and moving quality to Wild Grey Ocean that manages to reflect so well on the past. Fender is infuriatingly brilliant at that. Wisdom beyond his years feels like a cop-out for what the local hero has actually achieved in such a short period. A first run-through gives the instrumentals their go, and a second listen is just a bubbling mess of tears and pride. It is a uniquely colloquial experience that has, like Arctic Monkeys before him, been elevated to the international stage.
Such a move has not stripped Fender’s work of its roots or qualities, if anything it has emboldened them. Just take a look at Finsbury Park and its sea of Londoners wearing Newcastle United t-shirts. The colloquial effect strikes again, but with a greater impact than anybody could have expected. Not least Fender, whose slow trickle of tracks post-Seventeen Going Under is a delightful surprise when artists are usually happy to starve audiences of tracks until the next album rolls around. That seems prevalent this year. New artists are keen to offer what they have, when they have it, and for good reason. Wild Grey Ocean releases at the right time for Fender, a saxophone-ending track that marks another touching, real piece of self-reflection.
