Music Review: Sam Fender’s pop-rock soars on his third album, ‘People Watching’

On “Crumbling Empire,” atop grooving electric guitar, Fender appears to describe his family and the systems they were failed by: “My mother delivered most of the kids in this town / My stepdad drove in a tank for the crown,” before summarizing his album in a few lines: “I don’t wear the shoes I used to walk in / But I can’t help but thinking where they’d take me / In this crumbling empire.”