Sam Fender has teased that his new album is now finished and “mastered”, with input from The War On Drugs’ Adam Granduciel.
Earlier this week, the Geordie singer-songwriter shared a teaser of a euphoric new song on his Instagram Stories, with two snippets being made available for 24 hours.
Now, another Instagram post sees Fender writing simply, “mastered x”, alongside a series of photos and videos of the creative process behind the making of the record. Check out the post below:
The photos show Fender in the studio with a guitar strapped around his neck, as well as shots of the studio itself, a screenshot of Tom Petty’s ‘Love Is A Long Road’, and Granduciel playing keyboards alongside other musicians.
The videos include snippets of music, including a warm, freestyle saxophone solo, as well as live footage of Fender on stage.
Fender first hinted that he had been working with Granduciel in March, sharing footage of them in the studio together in the US, alongside producers, engineers and other musicians. Another song snippet was shared at that time, complete with upbeat, anthemic riffs.
SAM VIA INSTAGRAM STORIES!! pic.twitter.com/YEVlqIhpPP
— Sam Fender Daily (@dailyfender) October 2, 2024
Fender has not released an album since 2021’s ‘Seventeen Going Under’, his critically acclaimed second record. Since then, however, he has dropped the soulful ‘Iris’ from the Jackdaw soundtrack, and the Noah Kahan collaboration ‘Homesick’.
Since then, he confirmed to fans over the summer that he had welcomed singer Brooke Bentham into his band, and shared that “her voice is all over the next album”. He also spoke with Brian Johnson and Mark Knopfler in May as part of the Sky Arts’ Music Legends series, in which he revealed that he felt “rushed” to release his second record.
The long-awaited third album from Fender has been anticipated since he shared pre-order details last summer. Ahead of his two massive homecoming shows in June 2023 – which saw over 100,000 fans flock to Newcastle’s St James’ Park stadium – a series of billboards appeared close to the stadium, and piqued fans’ curiosity.
The posters contained three variations of Newcastle United shirts, each one representing one of his albums. The first showed the garment with the number one on it — representing his debut — the second showed the number two, referring to his second LP, and the third came with a QR code that fans could scan to receive updates.
As for more about what the new material could sound like, Fender spoke to NME ahead of his biggest shows to date, and told us that the new music was sounding “very pretty” with a strong “singer-songwriter” vibe.
