The Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — is in Latvia to review the acts competing in Supernova 2019. Today we turn our attention to Double Faced Eels and Dzili Violets. What did we think? Read on to find out!
Double Faced Eels — “Fire”
“Fire” reviews
Oliver: “Fire” is a good example of how to blend two genres and styles together without it feeling forced or messy. The song starts off gentle but quickly takes a different turn as the beat begins to kick in. The high-point comes with the drop at the chorus, showcasing a more modern side to the song. One issue is that it does feel a little shouty and out of range but with time I’m sure that it can be smoothed out.
Score: 7.5/10
Jordi: Energetic yet exciting, Double Faced Eels’ “Fire” is the variety Supernova needed to hear in an edition already widely claimed to be one of the weakest ever seen. From start to end, “Fire” doesn’t disappoint. The song builds minute per minute until exploding in proper – yet desirable – thrilling energy. We must also mention its riveting electronic base. Lights and fire are a must but in any case, this is definitely a contender.
Score: 6.5/10
Jack: “Fire” stands out in the Supernova crowd of Spotify-friendly pop entries and Latvian lounge tracks by being loud, proud and in your face. The message here is simple and, perhaps drawing inspiration from Eleni Foureira, delivers a catchy “I’ve got that fire” hook. During the round of auditions, “Fire” sounded disjointed and unpolished but Double Faced Eels’ studio cut and music video cleans things up really nicely, solidifying “Fire” as a front-runner in the contest.
Score: 6/10
Florian: The song comes with an interesting arrangement but kinda falls off after its first seconds. The vocals sound a little risky and too shouty (especially towards the end). Honestly, this isn’t a bad track by any means but towards the end I felt that the song became too messy. Please consider doing more with the first half of the track, thank you!
Score: 4/10
Antranig: My favourite thing here is the name of the band. Double Faced Eels sounds cool but “Fire” does not burn all that bright. I like the way that the song builds up and the heavy instrumental section. However, the electronic sound doesn’t feel all that original and feels as though it is competing with the lead vocalist. It’s a decent song that can be salvaged with a minor revamp. Latvia could do a lot worse than this.
Score: 7/10
Deban: A rather shouty refrain over fusion beats, “Fire” leans rather heavily on processed vocals and instrumentation. The ending is a rather abrupt finish to a song about perseverance. Overall, this fire is angry and does not convey tenacity.
Score: 5/10
In our Supernova 2019 Wiwi Jury, we have 14 jurors but only room for 6 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:
Sebastian: 5.5/10
Bernardo: 4.5/10
Edgars: 5/10
Robyn: 6/10
Natalie: 6.5/10
Luis: 7/10
Kristin: 7/10
Lukas: 6/10
Before calculating the average score, the highest and lowest scores are dropped. This is to remove outliers and reduce potential bias. We have removed a low of 4 and a high of 7.5.
Wiwi Jury Verdict: 6/10
Dzili Violets — “Tautasdziesma”
“Tautasdziesma” reviews
Sebastian: Shade aside, let’s keep it “all about the love”. In such an arguably weak lineup for Supernova, at least Dzili Violets brings something so stupidly different and anthemic, yet tongue-in-cheek. This is exactly the kind of song that would get a slightly inebriated (be it from fatigue or otherwise) Eurovision crowd in Tel Aviv to stand arm-in-arm and be united as one. As a song, sure — it’s silly. But as an anthem — it might just achieve political diplomacy in Tel Aviv.
Score: 7.5/10
Bernardo: When did Supernova become this? “Tautasdziesma” is trying to be an anthem and ends up being nothing. The song draws from so many genres but fails to craft its own identity. I’m just surprised to see it being selected by an expert panel to the live shows. No idea what they’re trying to achieve here. It’s a no from me.
Score: 2/10
Edgars: There is no doubt that this is the song that Latvia are going to send to Israel but that doesn’t mean that this song is good at all. Yes, Dzili Violets (meaning Deep Purple in Latvian) have the right attitude and the best idea for winning Supernova 2019 but personally, I hate this song. Dzili Violets prove that they are one of the best humour bands in Latvia. That improvised rapping in French and playing with English-Latvian words are brilliant. Petra and Mans had a laugh about the love and peace concept a couple of years ago and this joke is old enough to never be told again. Change the chorus and I believe that this song will reach the final in Israel. Otherwise, we have to hope Estonia and Lithuania are in our semis to have more than 10 points this year.
Score: 6/10
Robyn: Much has been made of the fact that one of the performers moonlights as the beloved Riga Beaver. But if this song makes it to Eurovision, most viewers won’t know or care about that. The song needs to stand on its own but it’s not quite there. While it has good structure and takes listeners on a journey, “Tautasdziesma” isn’t quite catchy enough to work as a stand-out Eurovision act.
Score: 5.5/10
Natalie: Oh dear. There was always gonna be a song like this in Supernova, yet it always catches me unawares. I honestly don’t know what the point is. Yes, it’s a bit of fun… I guess…. But, at the end of the day, it does just feel like a waste of everyone’s time. So let’s not talk about this anymore and get on with our lives.
Score: 2/10
Luis: Eh? A part of me says I should like this because of its outré quality and the so many different quirks “Tautasdziesma” has. On the other hand, I find myself confused and slightly bored at the end of the three minutes. The question here is whether this is funny or not and I’m not certain if that’s the point of this entry. What exactly is this?
Score: 5/10
In our Supernova 2019 Wiwi Jury, we have 14 jurors but only room for 6 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:
Kristin: 7/10
Lukas: 4/10
Oliver: 2/10
Jordi: 4.5/10
Jack: 3/10
Florian: 1.5/10
Antranig: 2/10
Deban: 2.5/10
Before calculating the average score, the highest and lowest scores are dropped. This is to remove outliers and reduce potential bias. We have removed a low of 1.5 and a high of 7.5.
I really like “Fire”. It’s polished, good vocals, nice structure. This is quite good among all those average songs we’ve heard from Latvia this year.
Use the proper characters, Wiwibloggs!
Along wtih Edgar’s “Fire”, Double Faced Eels’ “Fire” is the best choice Latvia could make in this pretty weak Supernova edition. He needs to work on his vocals, but I see potential here.
Fire – What is this? An energetic, well made song in Latvia! It’s arguably the strongest entry in this selection, even if it’s not the strongest one in the mixing department. The chorus is really good and catchy. Compared to the best songs of some other NFs it maybe comes short, but in Latvia, this is probably the top. – 7.5/10 Tautasdziesma – Hmm… out of three Latvian songs, this one suffers the most of having it’s lyrics unpublished. It’s obviously meant to be a joke entry, but the punchline is having a deadpan delivery over (supposedly) funny content. Not… Read more »
Sorry but Tautasdziesma is as bad as it gets. Still really annoyed that this made it to the semi-finals at the expense of others.