The Latvian song was revealed on March 12th, with the premier of its video showed during a documentary called "Kā uzvarēt Eirovīzijā?" (How to win Eurovision?) with the video available via online platforms soon after. After the cancellation of the 2020 concert, Samanta Tina was once again selected to represent Latvia, this time with an internally selected song. She will be singing "The moon is rising"
Most of the video takes place in what looks like a disused and derelict hall. She is flanked by numerous dancers all wearing different clothes. At the start Samanta is wearing a rather unusual combination of knee high white boots with a long white shirt over which is a brown jacket although she is seen wearing a couple of other outfits. There are also some darker shadowy edits where you can see Samanta surrounded by lasers and can just see her outline. Throughout the song there is a lot of synchronised dancing - in particular the crown handography - all performed with a lot of attitude.
The song starts with the main line from the chorus and also goes to a very jarring high note. The verses have a very staccato, syncopated rapping feel to them and the tune for each part is very repetitive. When we finally get back to the refrain at the start of the song this is then followed up by an over-long 'pa-ra-ra parade' section. We then have a second verse and ere the Spanish style guitar is more prevalent which gives is a slightly softer feel to it. There is then a bridge which again is repetitive and chanted. We then have a part instrumental-part altered chorus followed by the 'pa-ra-ra' chant to the end"
Samanta is a serial national final competitor - having attempted to sing for Latvia five times, Lithuania once and eventually winning the Latvian national final in 2020. At the start of her career she took part in other singing competitions including Golden Voices and Slavianski Bazaar. She also participated in the Voice Lithuania, finishing in the final 8.
You can see the links between this song and her 2020 song and I suppose this shows how she is comfortable with this style of music. However there is a good chance that if you *didn't* like her first one, you won't be liking this either! For me this is just noise. The parts kind of work together but at times it feels that they are fighting against each other rather than complimenting. Also the balance of the lengths of the parts doesn't work either. The big notes in the 'chorus' makes me feel really uneasy and I sense that when I see her on stage I will be so on tenterhooks about her reaching the notes, enjoying her actual show might not be an option. I am also extrapolating that her stage show will be something like the video - which will be interesting with just 5 other dancers - so unless they use parts of the video to beef up the numbers this might feel a bit empty in spirit.
ARTIST - Samanta Tina
SONG - The moon is rising
WRITING CREDITS - Aminata Savadogo, Samanta Tīna, Oskars Uhaņs
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