Estonia, Austria Denmark

Estonia: Bridges by Alika

Inspirations from the glorious Kate Bush are not uncommon at Eurovision, but Alika has certainly taken it to new heights: piano: ✅; elements from ‘Breathing’: ✅; expressive barefoot dancing on red rose petals: ✅. A big voice that taps into familiar territory – definitely a chance for the finales.

Reviewed by

Mariella Herberstein

Austria: Who The Hell Is Edgar by Teya & Salena

Packaged up in high octane dance pop comes an unexpected piece of satirical social commentary. There is reference to how little artists are paid (0.003 cent per stream) and how female songwriters struggle to be taken seriously. And all that with reference to gothic poet, Edgar Allan Poe! Some consider this kaleidoscope a bridge too far, I say – let this insanity interrupt the long intervals of horrible sanity!

Reviewed by

Mariella Herberstein

Hansani: very creative and dramatic performance.

Denmark: Breaking My Heart by Reiley

Primary colour enthusiast, Reiley is not afraid of love. Indeed, he is loved by millions of TikTok followers and all the way to South Korea. The song, which seems to only consist of a chorus without a beginning or an end, is light, sweet and catchy synthPop – perfect for the small screen, but will it work live on stage? Enough for the finales, for sure!

Reviewed by

Mariella Herberstein

Estonia, Ireland, Montenegro

Estonia – Stefan: Hope

Estonia is going full country on Eurovision! Surely bringing a spaghetti western to Italy is nothing short of genius! Stefan has the right voice and attitude to carry this off and he can even ride a hose (a white one, of course) – certainly the video is high class. Could be the dark horse of the competition?

Review by Mariella Herberstein

Ireland – Brooke: That’s Rich

Surrounded by solid 80s synth, and dressed in pyjamas, Brooke’s cheeky girl-pop is audacious and fresh. I, for one, highly appreciate the departure from the folk-inspired songs that Ireland likes to throw at Eurovision (as well as the occasionally turkey). Brooke won’t win Eurovision for Ireland, but she will definitely do better than recent years when Ireland came last in the semis. You go girl!

Review Mariella Herberstein

Montenegro – Vladana: Breathe

Following a period of hiatus, Montenegro has decided to come back to Eurovision with a classic Balkan ballad. Vladana, probably a vampire, laments the fragility of life with an impressive vocal range. Undoubtedly, Montenegro’s best performance to date, yet the song lacks a catchy chorus to hook into and to propel it into the finales.

Review by Mariella Herberstein

Romania, Australia and Estonia

Romania: Amnesia by Roxen

Amnesia is a song that deals with pressures of modern performance focused societies and the impossibility to achieve “it all” as the lyrics say. Comparison to the busy and ever more demanding world may lead to low self-esteem and feeling of inadequacy when the usually self-defined (but also exogenous) criteria of perfection are not met – something that almost anyone can relate to. The song is a surprisingly nice piece that keeps to its focal message without meandering too much. Overall style of the music video is something in between of emo kid style of 2000’s (imagine Arvil Lavigne around the time of ‘Sk8er boi’) and more modern version of emo style represented by Billie Eilish.

Review by Sanni Silvasti



Australia: Technicolour by Montaigne

First hearing of the song left me annoyed and made me consider insulting my future country of residence with a prickly critical review. Second time hearing the song I read the lyrics and changed my mind on most of my squeamishness; Aussie accent and elongated artsyish vocals had distracted me from a pretty nice message of the song. Further listening made me also grant that Montaigne can really sing. What finally made me box the compass with ‘Technicolour’ were the two lines in the lyrics “Everything is frustrating, Everything moves along faster than I can relate to” – my thought exactly! The song is weakened only by the shouted few lines right after the ones mentioned previously, and also maybe little bit due to the fact that the line “time to take off your cloaks” seriously sounds like Montaigne was urging us to take off our clothes!

Review by Sanni Silvasti



Estonia: The lucky one by Uku Suviste

Well, here’s a proper Eurovision contest song! Smells like nothing, tastes like nothing – did I just hear something?? A breakup song is always a dodgy choice for Eurovision since they tend to be monotonous and repetitious in character. My suspicion is that this one will be forgotten by the viewers in the midst of all the other performances and will not make it through semi-finals.

Review by Sanni Silvasti



Azerbaijan, Croatia & Estonia

Azerbaijan

Truth by Chingiz

I am not sure Azerbaijan is doing Eurovision right. Chingiz delivers a surprisingly entertaining and danceable pop number that could be enjoyed twice, perhaps even three times. No wailing, no ethno-sounds and no key-change. I might even forgive the chest rug – definitely in the top 10!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

Croatia

The Dream by Roko

Roko had a dream – he found the cast off scores from the Phantom of the Opera, turned them into a shouty and overly dramatic yet soppy ballad with which he bombed out of the Eurovision semis. Someone send Andrew Lloyd Webber a shredder!

Review by Mariella Herberstein

Estonia

Storm by Victor Crone

Hobby meteorologist Victor has a simple message: a modest song with inane lyrics that will be over in 3’02” and forgotten by 3’23”. Thank you Victor.

Review by Mariella Herberstein

Estonia, Lithuania and Russia

EstoniaElina Nechayeva: La Forza

Call me Ishmael. A good review is a narrative, and a good narrative has 5 elements:

1. A great first sentence (why mess around? I just went with the best!)

2. A journey. Amongst other things, my first sentence was supposed to simply an allegorical search for the meaning of life, and subtly suggest certain flattering characteristics about myself, all of which have been ruined because I realised it is a cultural reference whose meaning may not be apparent to everyone, and explaining it has negated any beneficial effects. Anyway, we are going one better than a search for the meaning of life – we are on a quest to discover the meaning of Eurovision, one of the greatest mysteries in the universe! Yay!

3. Elegant, lucid, succinct prose.

Two other elements which will hopefully come to me soon, otherwise I’ll have to explain why I said “5 elements” and only listed three.

On to the business at hand. Elina from Estonia can sing! She sings like the Diva from 5th Element (see what I did? It’s called foreshadowing in case you are interested), but the real star of the act is the dress, inside of which Elina is propped. I don’t know why this wasn’t mentioned in the official notes, but her dress is so big that it covers 2.4 hectares, and is encrusted in 3 million individally thought-controlled, coloured LEDs. Yes, Elina was singing and controlling the lights on her dress at the same time. She and her dress are a flowing fiesta of colour and light. Darwin would have maintained it was sexual selection at work, and who am I to question the great man? Rumour has it that Elina will be part of Sydney’s Vivid festival this year.

Did I mention that she can sing? Her final note shattered the wine glass in my hand. My prediction? Next year, Eurovision will be held in Tallinn, and by next spring, everyone will be wearing those dresses.

It seems I’ve allowed myself to be carried away by all the excitement of the event, and unintentionally created a metaphor for THE DRESS, whose maker also got carried away, and we both ended up with something way too big to be fit-for-purpose. Sorry.

Review by Jim McLean

 

LithuaniaIeva Zasimauskaitė: When We’re Old

When I see pop singers “playing” the piano I am often sceptical about who actually pressed the keys, but there is absolutely no doubt that Ieva played the whole song. It’s just a special piano, and pressing one key produces all the chords I reckon. Well, around the 40-45 seconds mark you see she got some assistance, but it was mostly he work, surely. The short bio states that she took lessons until she was fifteen, so there you go. Her voice is nice to listen to, and the song itself is very original, it’s about a topic no other song I can remember ever touched — eternal love. More specifically though, it seems to describe how love is powerful and can last forever when you live in a snowy country. Maybe it wears off more slowly due to the low temperatures?

Review by Bruno Buzzato

 

RussiaJulia Samoylova: I Won’t Break

When I was watching this video I had trouble focusing on anything other than the fact that Julia’s right eye sits so much higher on her face than her left eye! But thankfully only about 70% of the video is entirely about on her face. Well, that’s not entirely true, sometimes you see landscapes IN her face, which is, ugh, interesting? And then in the end you see her face in the landscape — on the top of a mountain, more specifically. With a waterfall. And a rainbow. And the moon too. In any case, Julia is not just a pretty face. The song? Sorry I didn’t pay much attention, and honestly, I’m not watching that again, am I?

Review by Bruno Buzzato

Switzerland and Estonia

Switzerland
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The Last Of Our Kind by Rykka

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Switzerland, after a recent string of poor Eurovision performances, has gone back to their last (1988) winning formula: a Swiss-Canadian female pop singer, belting out a ballad in a white dress. Unfortunately, finding another Céline Dion has proved evasive. This year’s entry, Rykka, singing The Last of our Kind, falls flat, both literally and figuratively.

The song is generic, and once finished is quickly forgotten. Although meeting the required key changes that define Eurovision ballads, the lack of energy or anything to ‘push the boundaries’ leaves the audience quickly forgetting the song. Overall, it left me revisiting old videos of Céline Dion in a drop-waist skirt and white power jacket and reminiscing of the glory days of Switzerland Eurovision past.

Neutrality, both in the song and Switzerland’s political position will cost The Last of our Kind a spot in the grand final.

Review by Fran van den Berg

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Estonia
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Play by Jüri Pootsmann

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Starting pensively with a heavy baseline, Estonia’s Play sung by Jüri Pootsmann promises something special. Unfortunately, sometimes even the best promises don’t deliver. A deep voice, and well cut suit are not enough to transform this song above the mundane.

The set design, with red and black silhouettes, and billowing graphics evokes a James Bond theme. However, the overall effect of three aggressive-looking spliced images of Jüri only serves to leave one feeling slightly uneasy. Despite the Bond-like graphics, musically the song does not have any of the power or intrigue that befits a Bond theme song. Throughout, the song never develops, and one is disappointingly left wondering when the Eurovision magic will emerge.

This will not be the year for Estonia, with nothing more than mid-way performance in the semi’s feeling eminent.

Review by Fran van den Berg