Nigeria (Naked and Red):
Love the instrumentation, vocalist's voice is excellent, and it's got a nice spicy dissonance to it. Very strong opening to the contest.
Peru (Mythical):
Instrumental's nice, it's a good beat and the brass accents work well. Unfortunately I just don't usually care for rap, and while there are semi-frequent exceptions... this isn't one of them. Respect the talent that went into it, but just doesn't do it for me.
Sumer (Oh Marcello):
I really liked the first few seconds building up to the song proper. Singer's very good at her job. Not a fan of how it seems to oscillate between two different songs though? Seems like it'd probably work better in a musical than as a standalone song. Real mixed on this one.
Scythia (Storm):
Almost feels like videogame music, and I mean that as a compliment. Love the blend of synthy sounds, the rain effects, and the violin on top of it. Really makes the classical melodies feel fresh. Get the feeling I'll be adding Vanessa Mae to my listening rotation after this, simply incredible work.
Sweden (Charles Francis Coghlan):
It's pretty good! Really well executed on all fronts. Only real complaint is that I prefer my metal to favor singing and use the screams for effect, as opposed to favoring screaming and singing for effect. Still very, very good though.
Mount Celeste (Objection Funk):
Objection Funk's a classic, but one I am saddened to see as it means I have to kick Win The Race off my list of songs to enter later. Excellent use of the samples, beat's fresh as hell, all you'd expect from an iteachvader track.
Chile (One Week):
Despite having definitely heard the original a few times before, I had a really difficult time parsing the lyrics here. The singing is incredibly well done in spite of my audio processing difficulties though, and the instrumental is very fun and jazzy too. A nice listen.
Wales (Grapefruit):
I liked this one a lot. Incredibly strong voice, and you can tell it's coming from a genuine emotional place. Skin room's likely to give me nightmares though.
Mali (Expert in a Dying Field):
Man, I'm always a slut for this particular brand of indie rock. Always manages to hit the brain just right with the mix of melancholy vocals and upbeat instrumental, and there's a reason the sound profile's become sort of generic and that's because it's damn good and it works.
Madagascar (Plan Z):
From the intro, I really didn't expect to like this one as much as I did. Mostly used to this kind of AI voice mapping being used for either low-effort memes or digital necromancy, so a HIGH effort meme is a refreshing change, and honestly it's just a damn good song underneath. If I didn't have the context of SpongeBob, I could easily mistake this for just being a solid metal track with slightly weird lyrics.
Uqbar (Farfalle):
I think this one's a bit too high-concept for me. It took way too long to actually start, and when it did it was just loud more than anything else. Some of the guitar riffs are neat, but not neat enough to carry the whole song. Maybe if I spoke Italian the vocals would hit better?
Gabon (Red Wine Supernova):
Very cute, very fun, very gay.
Antarctica (Chocological):
Honestly was surprised Mili hadn't been submitted before. Difficult choice between this one and Nine Point Eight, but I decided Chocological was probably more representative of their work as a whole, and thought it'd be less likely to be potentially triggering.
