Michael Oliver
I cannot remember the last time I was so charmed by a song that I played it over and over again upon receipt. Only seconds into the first single from the forthcoming, hopefully late-Fall-ish album by Michael Oliver and the Sacred Band, Everything Sunny All the Time Always, I was thanking my lucky stars that such a wonderful creation (in the form of a great-sounding studio rough) had fallen into my lap. The album, you should know, is being recorded with Ducky Carlisle at his Ice Station Zebra studio in Medford, Massachusetts.
I’ve been a big fan of Michael’s for a long time. News of a new album on the horizon made me stand up and take notice. The new song, “Sabina,” which sees its Pure Pop Radio premiere tonight at 8:30 pm ET and will subsequently be spinning in hot rotation after that, is an expertly crafted, lovely, mid-tempo ballad–a heartstring tugger about loss, about sensory memory, about love, about life. Michael says the song is about a cat or life. Yes and yes.
Following a gorgeous, riff-based opening (played out atop a haunting, ghostly percussion track), Michael sings, “If she’s gone, then why do I call her name and wait for her quiet games?” as the sensory memory sets in. And then, the heartbreaking chorus, punctuated by a sensitive accordion sample, played to perfection: “Sabina’s gone but not forgotten…but something in my heart still lingers. I close my eyes and find her there.”
The final chorus adds an inventive background vocal wash, underpinned by hope, and a closing, sadly and ultimately life affirming observation: “And sometimes we all feel bruised and battered. We all need to know somehow it matters.”
As I said, this is a heartstring tugger. Michael is in fine form on the song, his vocal acutely observed. “Sabina” is a triumph. Listen to the song’s Pure Pop Radio premiere tonight at 8:30 pm ET. Hear it in rotation after that, and keep a look out for Everything Sunny All the Time Always mere months from now. The fall, or thereabouts, is looking up already.
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