LITHUANIA

The Lithuanian Final was held on March 11th at Švyturio Arena in Klaipeda, hosted by Ieva Stasiuleviciute & Gabriele Martirosianaite. Before the final there were a sequence of heats, quarterfinals, semi-finals and wild card votes before reaching the final of 7 acts 2017. The winner was chosen by televoting (50%) & an "expert" jury (50%). He winner was the group Fusedmarc with the song “Rain of revolution”.

The national final performance is very visual, The singer, Viktorija, has a long flowing dress and has her hair splayed out on top of her head like a Japanese bun.  She is very active, moving around the stage and trying to embody the words and music through her movements. Behind her is the guitarist and a line of backing singers. The video wall behind and below them is very well used. In fact, the glowing catherine wheel effect on the floor is very effective, especially from the above camera shots. The splattery, fuzzy background is a nice contrast to her dress but very little else.

The song starts off with a very jazzy fanfare before Viktorija, starts singing. Her voice is very strong and changes tone and strength depending on the different part she is singing. That said her diction and accent are almost impenetrable, especially at the start. The verses are very similar to Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” but without the funky guitar riff. The chorus is much more anthemic and sticks in your head quite quickly. After the chorus there is a roundel of ‘yeah yeah yeah’-ing which is really a waste and the fact it ends on this is very confusing. I would be more impressed if she lost it completely and went full on jazz with an improvised scatting middle 8.

Although this is another different style to add to this year’s genre list, it misses the mark, and by a wide berth too. Her voice, although quite artistic, it is very hard to listen too and her diction is verging on being ‘indecipherable club singer’. If you don’t know what she’s singing about you cannot connect to her orthe song. The different parts of the song don’t really work as a cohesive unit, I fear this will feel flat in the hall which will in turn make the viewers at home wonder what this song is missing.

The only glimmer of hope this has of qualifying is if the diaspora, of which there are some participating countries in the semi, vote hard enough to give their homeland and extra push, however I am not quite sure the juries (unless they are full to the brim of jazz/funk aficionados) will go for this at all. We won’t be seeing this on Saturday night.

ARTIST - Fusedmarc

SONG - Rain of revolution

MUSIC - Viktorija Ivanovskaja, Denis Zujev, Michail Levin

LYRICS - Viktorija Ivanovskaja, Denis Zujev, Michail Levin