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Final verdict: 9/10 ★★★★⋆˙⟡
Well… it has certainly been a while since I last stumbled upon a song of such warmth. A song that heals the soul, a band-aid for the broken-hearted, the sweet embrace of a heated blanket on a cold January afternoon. That first sip of black coffee in the morning, the blooming of the flowers as it sprouts about in the month of March, the glistening dewdrops on the lawn as they are spotted in the early morning. An instance of rain amid an excruciating summer, a 12th century Buddhist text read at sunrise, the return to health following a turbulent bout of illness. Such are the mysterious ways of life.
Sabby is a designer and developer by trade, yet the Bangladeshi jack-of-all-trades is by no means an arts snob – nay, the man is a singer-songwriter himself. Yet cue 2023, and he hit a wall – a wall of intrapersonal and workplace troubles, as well as a nerve issue that made it so that his dominant hand was as good as obsolete. Fearing that he would no longer be able to design or play guitar, he wrote “Protirup,” a song blossomed from existential worry. He says his wife helped him get through this woeful period in his life, during which he was living on a day-to-day basis. So, through it all… a song was born. And whew boy, what a song it is.
Released shortly after Sabby managed to get his life back in order, “Protirup”is an indie-rock piece that heavily draws from western folk traditions. Flooded with chorus-heavy guitars and Sabby’s rather lovely voice, it is a song of perseverance in the face of near overwhelming doom. The lyrics are in Bengali (Sabby’s native tongue), so there’s surely a lot that I am missing as it withers away in translation, but the second verse roughly translates to “The clouds that lingered over the city / Are slowly drifting away / The noise tucked into lanes and alleys / Is gradually falling silent / I keep walking step by step / Wearing a quiet disguise / I keep walking step by step / Hiding behind a borrowed face.”
You see, though taken out of their precious linguistic context, these lyrics nevertheless stop the receiver in his tracks with just how vivid the imagery is. Sabby quite precisely pinpoints the feeling of living life one day at a time, as the clouds that once gloomed the city clear up and the noise slowly disappears (that is, as the narrator’s torments are slowly disintegrating). He is getting through it all by way of masquerade, but getting through it he is. And that right there, ladies and gentlemen, is beauty.
But I will be damned if the tune isn’t absolutely glorious too. In an instant reminiscent of Cheer Chen’s incredible 2002 record “Groupies,” the melody is airy, seemingly floating above the listener as it goes places well familiar, yet thrilling and uncharted as recontextualized. The recording is quite lo-fi, making the song feel just this much more domestic and ordinary, down-to-earth and grounded. What’s not to love? Goddamnit, Sabby. This one got me good. Hats off. 9/10.
Silia 
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