by Siobhan Sykes

The unparalleled prodigy Saulo Oliveira S. stepped the first year of his 30s this month. Just about two years ago he released his extended play "Prince of Rock”. So, it is worth remembering how he’s emerging from the independent Rock scene with a captivating voyage into the territories of leftfield Hip-Hop and Rock, which showcases the songwriter's unmistakable flair for crafting otherworldly soundscapes.

The model and British-Brazilian musician widely known as the Prince of Rock was born on July 14, Birmingham, England and raised in Curitiba, Brazil.

Saulo debuted in music composing the soundtrack for the short film, documentary, which he also directed “Ethics, Politics and Citizenship”, in 2013. After that, he disappeared and only returned to entertainment in 2018 with experimental works released occasionally on his, at the time, newly created Soundcloud profile. The listeners' response was immediate and Memphis, one of Saulo's first known literate songs, was well received.

Then, in 2019, now under his independent label “British Rock Records”, he released other singles. In 2020 he released the album Wild Horizon which already outlined a bold musical maturity and an indelible artistic purism.

Finally, in 2022, the watershed comes to the world, the EP named with the homonymous emblem that enshrines Saulo with the deserved crowning honorary title.

Now, also graduated from Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences with a degree in Arts and Design from a course in which the study was Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and the 19th Century Orchestra, the Macneil singer seems to be ready to get back as he teases a return to music scheduled to 2025, on his website.

The symbolism inherent in the fact that he studies the classics and has an erudite training is interesting when, truth be told, Saulo's work can be the object of endless study thanks to its depth and complexity. The craftsmanship in the artist's way of production is something that sets him apart from others on the market and gives his work as a whole remarkable value. History will confirm this.

Saulo himself composes the melody, writes, sings, mixes, masters and produces all the songs he designs. By acting in this way, therefore, he stops being a mere musician and becomes a visionary artist who is present at every stage of the creation of his work. His detailed eye cannot fail to check and confirm that every small nuance is perfectly executed in the way he envisioned.

The result in the production chain is notable: Saulo's sound has more substance and personality than any other name in alternative rock today precisely because he is the last of his kind, Saulo is classic, he goes against the Fordist production model in which dozens of artists are immersed in just releasing generic music, with artificial elements designed to turn the mainstream gears and feed the algorithm.

Saulo, in 2019, sitting on the floor of his room, after drinking a few shots of whiskey, singing the first words that come to mind, impromptu, into a microphone attached to his iPhone 6, without autotune and the outcome of this being “The Doors of Perception” is the most sensorial rapturous genuine musical experience of the last decade.

It was all recorded in one take, and there it is; the rawness of a sober poetry captured in the alcoholic atmosphere of a moment of creative explosion encapsulated in three minutes and forty seconds of a journey down the Georgia roads, under the Alabama moonlight, of an alternative reality of the composer's mind.

In that same song, when Saulo's voice threatens to become hoarse while he holds the word “playing” and becomes partially hoarse at 1:27, even so, the recording continues. Any other robotic artist who doesn't have confidence in their voice or who doesn't have technique would stop everything and redo that part and eliminate the natural feel of the song. Saulo, on the other hand, has such control over his timbre that he proves this when he reaches the last notes of The Doors of Perception in a Jim Morrison way.

And this is just one of the songs on Wild Horizon, an experimental and conceptual album that could be Oliveira's masterpiece if Oliveira didn’t release his definitive magnum opus two years later.

In the meantime, Saulo's singles should not be underestimated. In addition to the musical perspective, these are works that are also visually eye-catching. No, you did not read it wrong.

The cover design of each of the author's songs, also created by him, has imagery that evokes multiple interpretations.

It is said that the singer is diving into the waters of sentimentality on the cover of the single Like We Used To Do. The pig's head in Kool Kids Klub would represent the symbol of the authoritarian children's club in the dystopian song and would have been inspired by the Nobel Prize for Literature novel “Lord of the Flies”. The monstrous figure with his hands on the politician's shoulders on the cover of What Governs Behind Them? translates a semiotics so obvious that it leads to the maxim that the obvious sometimes needs to be said.

A master at hiding messages and symbols in his work, Saulo couldn't pass up the opportunity when create the cover for Lockdown. The image superimposes the same photograph in which Saulo appears to be smoking and, by inverting and superimposing them, he created a type of owl in the background that is at the same time geometrically in sync with Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi. If the image on the cover of the single Lockdown is placed in front of Salvator Mundi, it is possible to see the messianic figure hidden on Saulo's cover.

It is speculated that the message is that the owl, symbolising wisdom, recommended to the saviour that humanity should be stopped for its evil with the arrival of a fatal virus capable of reducing the human race to a single man who now lives in a world he inherited in which he built a castle with the bones of those the virus took and sewed his furniture with the skin of the dead. Dark and terrifying lyrics, but no more so than the reality it warns about: the human race needs to learn its limits.

Even Saulo's dog, Doggie Dhadi-Barvey, born in January 2008 and died in August 2023, had his moment of extreme fury captured by Oliveira's lens to compose the cover of the single Macneil. The image is plastically fortuitous and matches the theme of the song by reflecting a possessed and rabid dog; Sometimes in life, we need to allow our inner demons to flow like a river and this can be seen as an instinct, a gnashing of teeth in our daily canine revolt.

It's difficult to imagine any project that the rocker dedicates himself to that doesn't become a work of art. In Saulo, then, each note, each lyric, and each image is carefully crafted to evoke a powerful response, creating a sonic landscape that is both raw and refined, intense and introspective. His music is a tapestry of emotions, weaving together passion, introspection, and rebellion in a way that only a true artist can achieve.

There would be no time to unravel each aspect, for example, of Saulo's masterpiece, Renewing Rock N Roll, a breathtaking narrative epic.

Sometimes considered a genre that had been losing traction in recent years, Rock is renewed in the figure of people like Saulo Oliveira who has the daring to innovate and present his version of the world through art.

If art is the expression of an idea or emotion through a physical medium, then Renewing Rock N Roll is to Saulo what the Sistine Chapel is to Michelangelo and the Mona Lisa is to Leonardo Da Vinci. Far from exaggeration, considering the weight of this type of comparison, Oliveira's energy resembles that of a Renaissance trailblazer, with a performance that, at the very least, marks the rebirth of Alternative Rock.

Just as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo revolutionised art and culture in their time, Saulo is carving an indelible mark on the alternative music scene with his innovative approach and visionary creations. His songs are not just melodies, but profound works of art.

Much like the intricate brushstrokes of a Da Vinci masterpiece or the striking sculptures of Michelangelo, Saulo's compositions possess a depth and complexity that set him apart from his contemporaries.

Anyway, in a world where trends come and go, Saulo Oliveira stands as a beacon of authenticity and creativity. His impact on the alternative music scene is undeniable, reshaping the landscape of rock and roll with his bold vision and uncompromising artistry. As the Prince of Rock, Saulo Oliveira is transcending the boundaries of genre and time, solidifying his place in the pantheon of musical legends alongside the greats of the past.