The Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals now turns to Finland. International DJ and producer Darude featuring vocalist Sebastian Rejman will compete at UMK 2019 with three songs. We start with “Release Me”. Do we think this song should be released upon Tel Aviv? Read on to find out!

Darude feat. Sebastian Rejman – “Release Me”

“Release Me” reviews

Antranig: “Release Me” is a quality song, albeit with a repetitive and uninspiring chorus. Having said that, it’s the weakest of the three songs in Finland. I believe Darude and Sebastian Rejman can achieve a respectable result with any of the three songs. However, “Release Me” feels generic and meaningless compared to the other two songs which have deeper messages.

Score: 7/10

Essi: “Release Me” starts promisingly but when we go towards the chorus, the rhythm drops and everything kind of falls down. The song continues the same way, there’s nothing surprising in this song. It feels bad to say this but this song is boring and that is why it is not memorable.

Score: 2/10

Julian: After Darude was announced to represent Finland at Eurovision I was really hyped and my expectations were high. I didn’t know exactly what I could expect but I can say that this song did nothing but disappoint me. To be fair, the opening to the chorus is strong but that just leads into an electronic mess. I don’t like the melody and singing at all. This is the weakest song of all three.

Score: 2/10

Lucy: Going into hearing the first song, I don’t think any of us expected 1999’s massive “Sandstorm”… and, yeah, we were right.This song has a lot of potential, but it’s desperately calling out for a powerful vocal, as opposed to Sebastian’s calm tones. I feel it’s a bit more 2013 than 2019. In the height of Avicii’s prowess on the charts this would’ve smashed it out the park at Eurovision, and it really would’ve deserved it. But now it comes off as a bit unexciting and in need of more oomph.

Score: 5/10

Luis: “Release Me” is easily the weaker of the three entries competing for Finland. What one would expect from Darude is a strong, pacy dance anthem, while this one stays middle-of-the-road and comes across as one of those circa 2014 attempts to mix EDM with ballads. Paradoxically, “Release me” has the most current sound of all three, but given that Darude is an artist most known for his 1999 hit, a bit of a throwback is totally welcomed.

Score: 5/10

Robyn: There’s a good song in here, but I feel like it’s smothered in too many EDM gimmicks. And ok, this is Darude, this is his thing. But it’s also Eurovision and as Salvador showed us, sometimes less is more. Good staging could help. If that amazing chorus can feel as glorious live as it does in the studio version, this could be a serious contender.

Score: 7/10

In our UMK 2019 Wiwi Jury, we have 11 jurors but only room for 6 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:

Barnabas: 5/10

Oliver: 7/10

Jack: 6/10

Natalie: 6/10

Pablo: 9/10

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 2 and a high of 9.

Wiwi Jury Verdict: 5.56/10

Read all our UMK 2019 reviews and rankings here

Read more Finland news here

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Charles
Charles
5 years ago

Generic and meaningless… I mean … this is full definition of EDM … nuff said!

Thorula
Thorula
5 years ago

People were expecting Darude to give them the new Sandstorm. These songs aren’t bad but it doesn’t stick to what made him famous. But imagine being seen only as a meme, he needs to keep his touch without delivering a pale Sandstorm copy. If these songs weren’t made by Darude maybe people will be more indulgent with them

eurovision6
eurovision6
5 years ago

5.56?? For this? Why? Should not be higher than 4.0..

Gurl
Gurl
5 years ago

Dissapointing

Polegend Godgarina
5 years ago

“generic and meaningless compared to the other songs” as if the other two didn’t fit this discription sksksk

Briekimchi
Briekimchi
5 years ago

Probably my favourite of the three songs but to be honest, I like all of them.

ESCFan2009
ESCFan2009
5 years ago

“Release Me”: I like the melody/instrumental/electric sound very much! Just melodywise, without singing, it is the strongest of the three for me. But textwise the chorus comes a little flat (but the same with Look Away) and we have the comparision to Agnes’ Release Me. Anyways, it could be a great contender, if the strong melody, which I adore, sounds powerful on stage ^^ (8/10)

Daan
Daan
5 years ago

You easily could have written reviews for all his songs in one since they’re all the same and not very good though. Finland really needs to go back to the umk system they had before choosing Saara

Pablo
Pablo
5 years ago

All three songs got something really good on offer. I’m torn between “what seems thay will work live” versus “what creates a better first impression”.

I’m a huge fan of Release Me. Very chill and trance yet amazingly produced. On paper it sounds like it fits Sebastian’s vocals and style of live better, but it is a slower burn than other songs. Live could change all