Ralfs and Edmunds—the two halves of PeR—are back with a new single, Smile. Did they turn our frown upside-down? Or did we just purse our lips and turn away?

Smile is much stronger than their Eurovision 2013 entry, Here We Go, for several reasons. They pursued a more jazzy sound this time around, rather than producing a softcore hip-hop beat. Ralfs’ voice is more Bruno Mars in this song, with a touch of Pharrell Williams (it’s sort of like a slower version of Happy), and he does a much better job at it than Basim did.

The jazz sound, complete with nice touches of harmonica and saxophone, make it more lively and less mainstream than Here We Go. And finally, their placement of rap is used much more strategically. Whereas they previously rapped their verses, the only spoken word here is in the middle-8, where it stands out in a good way.

It’s a big step up from their song last year, but these budding artists still have a bit more to go.

Rating: 4.5/5

Photo: Courtesy of PeR

3 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Alex
Alex
9 years ago

These guys are really creative and talented. Here We Go wasn’t the right choice for Eurovision (too many instrumental parts and too rap-based), but I love PeR for the musical risks they take and how much fun they have doing what they do… not to mention their awesome early 00’s/late 90’s influence. Ralfs’ “Revelation” with Valters Puce was my favorite song and performance of any ESC national selection this year. The one thing I’d say with this is I think the instrumentation could be a little bit more soulful, but I can see they were trying to make it really… Read more »

ESCaddict
ESCaddict
9 years ago

PeR’s Here We Go should have won Eurovision. It was my favourite song. I am still listening to it. I love it.

Ranting Ruby
Ranting Ruby
9 years ago

Love it. Seriously. Smooth as … Sopon, how do I promote this track in Australia? (links, darling, LINKS!)