Her roots are in blues, but Samantha Fish is pushing the boundaries on a new album – with influences ranging from Prince to Fleetwood Mac, and a simpler approach to her songwriting and her gear. As she explains: “It doesn’t always work to have a 10-minute solo in the studio!”

“I WAS THINKING ABOUT ARTISTS I LOOK UP TO - AND PRINCE IS DEFINITELY ONE WHO WAS JUST UNAPOLOGETICALLY HIMSELF”

Samantha Fish’s seventh album, Faster, does just as its title suggests and takes things up a notch or two. The hooks are catchier than ever, the guitar work has yet more fire and, as the slightly provocative album artwork suggests, the record leaves the listener in little doubt that the Kansas City-born singer-songwriter is here to deliver straight-up swagger, with zero apologies. One of the overwhelming characteristics of Faster is that it in no way sounds or feels as if it were written in a time of global crisis, anxiety and restrictions. Says Samantha, “This is such a fun, exciting record and I really thought that it might go the other way when I first started the writing process.”

As an artist who normally tours hard and writes on the road, the housebound writing process offered a little escapism. “I think we all kind of hit this wall last year,” she says, “and I just started writing from this place of where I wanted to be, rather than where I was actually at. I feel like the best thing that came out of that was this empowering, upbeat, confident ‘take charge and control' kind of a record.”