It’s time for sadbois to unite, because Said The Sky and Dabin have teamed up for a second time for their newest record, Hero ft. Olivver The Kid, out via Seeking Blue. A follow-up to their previous collab, Superstar, which appeared on Said The Sky’s debut album, Hero exudes the same feelsy future bass vibes, complete with saturated electric guitar and ethereal vocal chops.
Beginning with the cutest bitcrushed vocal sample, Olivver The Kid takes over with his silky-smooth musings, making it a heartfelt bop overflowing with nostalgia. Soon comes a future bass paradise with soaring supersaws and prominent vocal chops at the forefront. The vaguest hint of an electric guitar in this first climax forebodes the next drop, which includes a solo guitar section too.
Of course, the organic instrumentation (guitar and piano) and the vocal chops contribute largely to feels oozing through the entire four minutes of the song, but the vocals and their lyrical content make this song as cute as it is. It’s a throwback to your teenage years with ‘I was making you a playlist’ of ‘Kings of Leon and Oasis’. A desperate chorus of heartache tugs at your heartstrings with ‘I wanna be your hero / Someone who can save you when it’s tough’. It’s only fitting that such a pure and wholesome song has pure and wholesome lyrics.
It’s hard not to compare this one to Superstar, given the similarities in sound design, arrangement and vibes. The vocal chops in Hero are much more authentic, sounding vaguely like organic melismas rather than an artifact of audio engineering – although Superstar’s single vocal loop was catchy, it was lacking the variation that Hero’s has. One of the standout features of Superstar which made it one of the best songs of last year was its unique drops – the first centered around vocal chops and the second around Dabin shredding the electric guitar. This tune adopts a largely similar structure, except the second drop includes both the vocal chop section and an additional guitar section, making it a whole fifty seconds long.
When the song closes with sixteen bars of pure piano and acoustic guitar which is so obviously recorded, you can’t help feeling that warm fuzzy feeling and hitting repeat.
This collaboration was inevitable; both producers are great friends, recent roommates and have gone b2b a few times (Dab The Sky at Lost Lands and a b2b at Illenium’s MSG show). With Said The Sky teasing fans often with clips from his upcoming sophomore album, it’s safe to assume that this song will be featured on its tracklist. Fingers crossed, maybe we’ll see a couple more singles from the album drop before this year comes to a close. Until then, enjoy binge listening to Hero.
