The Singles Bar: Thomas Abban displaces fears of a ‘Sinner’ for a glorious throne
Abban takes well-earned risks with his debut single for RCA Records.
Welcome to The Singles Bar, a review series focused on new single and song releases.
Memories can act like a ghoulish fiend sucking our blood and life force from our bodies. Especially in the aftermath of heartbreak or simply growing apart from someone, the anguish is practically insurmountable. Subsequently, we become trapped by our own minds, playing in the shadows of the past as a way to reconcile how things burnt out so abruptly or perhaps attempting to reassemble ruins which have certainly collapsed into dust. Genre-bender and multi-instrumentalist Thomas Abban keeps one foot in the past, even though his future seems far more luxurious and full of splendor. “Sinner,” his debut single for RCA Records, borrows imagery of sin and rapturing glory from the Bible to frame his story, cloaked in a dark story arc to salvation of his own devising.
Abban, who came to the states from Wales when he was just 10, bites the syllables and lets them flick from his tongue’s venomous tip. The gurgling of hard strings slice into the outer layers of skin. Nerves and blood cells are left exposed. But he cleans up the tears and the pain with his voice, often smooth, other times crunching in brittle wails fitting for arena-sized rock music. “So, baby, don’t you come back home,” he warns, the orchestral production tickling his sides. “And I’ll stay on my throne / Instead of feeling like a sinner in the arms of an angel…”
“Though our time was short, memories maintain life of a sort,” he then observes on the second verse. “And reflect all our fears / And infect all our tears…” The song crescendoes with hearty gusto, feeling as intimately-scrawled on mildewed parchment paper as it does as a bellowing cry from a bullhorn. Just when you think you’ve got the song on lock, Abban hurls another curve ball or two. The musical outro bares a striking, maybe jarring, resemblance to The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony,” at least in spectral intonation as it drives the stakes to an ungodly level.
“Sinner” primes his debut album, A Sheik’s Legacy, out later this fall on RCA Records.
Listen below:
Photo Credit: Maddy Fox
