We’ve all been there - the claustrophobia of your home town, whether a bustling metropolis or a sleepy village; there’s a certain element of nagging escapism from the place that’s packed with childhood and adolescence, ghosts of your former self haunting the streets so many times traced. It’s a subject that musicians have returned to time and time again, and the newest artist to take a run at this concept is Sam Fender. His brooding gem, ‘Leave Fast’, is a richly reverberated recording of guitar of voice, recorded in Fender’s self-built studios within a North Shields warehouse space. The simple combination leaves Fender’s emotion fully exposed, and so brace yourself as this one will leave you shook. As the Northern musician says of that track, “Leave Fast is an archetypal song about growing up in a small town, and the frustrations that are often felt by those who feel trapped within them,” but more than that Sam Fender is echoing the voice of a generation who feel stifled by the UK right now. Poignant in its simplicity, ‘Leave Fast’ is a favourite of ours this week. - Hannah Thacker