Hypersonic Missiles

by 
AlbumSep 13 / 201913 songs, 48m 27s
Heartland Rock Alternative Rock
Popular Highly Rated

A few years before releasing this debut album, Sam Fender entered a period of personal turbulence that included being diagnosed with an illness serious enough to have him contemplating his mortality. “I wrote a lot of my best stuff in that place,” he tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “It was just a mad time in my life. Some crazy things happened when I was about 20. It changed my perspective on everything.” One decision he reached was to stop writing songs for the wider world and concentrate on music that simply connected with *him*. “It was purely a selfish thing. It didn’t matter if I ever played them to anybody. And then it worked! You spend a lot of time looking outwards, at everybody else, but you should stick to your guns, man.” While he’s learned to trust his instinct, his lyrical focus has remained outwards. The people-watching and social conscience that ran through his early singles are expanded on *Hypersonic Missiles*, a chronicle of the everyday frustrations, dreams, and dramas of working-class towns such as the one he grew up in, North Shields, on England’s north-east coast. Prompted by the passing of a friend, “Dead Boys” examines male suicide and the reluctance in certain communities to talk about depression, while other subjects include abusive relationships, the patriarchy, one-night stands, and the politics of leaving a small town. The music moves between the title track’s full-blooded Springsteen-style rock, knottier indie (“Play God,” “That Sound”) and sparer folky moments (“Two People,” “Leave Fast”). Throughout, its urgency sits well with the emotionally charged lyrics. “You can hear the desperation in \[‘Play God’\],” he says. “I’d come out of this mad place, my producer was going to quit \[music\], I was going to quit. It came from a time where I needed to prove myself: ‘I need to do something that’s going to cut through.’ Half of the album comes from that time, and you can tell because they’re all ‘Ahhhhhh!’ on the moon, singing like it’s your last day on Earth.” A potent transmitter of feeling, Fender’s voice often recalls Brandon Flowers’ emotive surges and the haunted delicacy of Jeff Buckley. Buckley has been an influence ever since Fender’s older brother handed him a copy of *Grace* when Sam was 14. It’s hard to miss on a debut that packages yearning, desperation, anger, and escape in twisting, brooding guitar music. “I remember being blown away by the sheer power and vulnerability in \[*Grace*\],” he says. “It’s rock music, but it’s not like that macho thing. I realized rock music could be delicate.”

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6.1 / 10

Though the upstart British songwriter is a capable storyteller when he zeroes on a single topic, his debut is only intermittently transcendent.

8 / 10

Rising singer-songwriter blends political awareness with guitar-fuelled, feel-good indie on impressive debut

The Geordie Springsteen's debut excels at documenting small-town frustration, which is why he means so much to so many people

The idea that a guitar could be your ticket away from a small grey town has held for decades in music, from Bruce Springsteen’s tramps who were Born to Run, to Rock ’n’ Roll Star by Oasis (a dream, not a reality, when it was written) all the way to Jake Bugg’s Two Fingers.

There are sax solos (more than one), and pounding rhythms that make you want to jump in a car and drive down a highway at sunset

In the two-and-a-half years between his first single, the urgent and atmospheric "Play God," and the release of his full-length debut in 2019, much was made of U.K. singer and songwriter Sam Fender's relatively young age -- 23 by the arrival of the latter.

Although Sam Fender leans a little too heavily on his influences at times, Hypersonic Missiles is everything a debut should be.

He’s the name on everyone’s lips and despite looking like a Burberry model that wouldn’t look out of place in an episode of Made in Chelsea with those cheekbones, he’s North Shields’ finest export and he’s finally discharged his unabashed and anthemic debut record Hypersonic Missiles.

8 / 10

Sam Fender is a natural storyteller. It’s as simple as that. He uses his observational lyrics to tell the stories in his songs. Fender has had a

The North Shields singer-songwriter may look cookie-cutter but his gritty, gloriously anthemic songs on toxic masculinity, violence and death are anything but

The “hypersonic missiles” in the title song of Sam Fender’s terrific debut refer to a weapon that may wipe out mankind, but the phrase serves equally well as a metaphor for Fender’s oeuvre, where every song bristles with explosive ideas.