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LITHUANIA – Tavo Akys – Katarsis
As implausible as it may seem for someone for whom 99% of my musical gamut revolves around “have Birthe Kjaer or Katri-Helena done a cover version of it?”, a genre that occasionally floats my boat is Viking-inspired battle anthems. I know, I know, it does sound deeply unlikely, but at a beginner level I genuinely know my way around the likes of Wardruna and Danheim, Munknörr and Wizex (admittedly, one of these is not like the others).
It’s actually pretty rousing stuff when I’m in the right mood, and could absolutely inspire me to grow a mighty beard, book a seat on a budget longship and set sail for far distant lands to raid the cheeseboard and pillage the pigeonholes. Whatever happened to pigeonholes, anyway?
Now, dragging this determinedly into relevance to the topic, people keep hinting at sending something suitably sanitised but still powerful from the genre to Eurovision. I definitely want somebody to, but so far nobody has ever quite pulled it off. The latest attempt was perhaps Gåte’s last year, which ended up falling very flat with the judgementalists of Europe.
Now, when I listened to – and did NOT watch – Katarsis in action, the synapses suddenly fired, the blood started flowing through my veins and I thought that Tavo Akys might actually be the closest we’ve got so far to somebody getting it right. It’s dramatic, it takes ancient musical traditions and gives them a contemporary edge. Listening to it, I almost felt compelled to sharpen my axe (not a euphemism) and check Facebook Marketplace for local raiding parties near me.
Unfortunately – oh, I’ve very much been setting this up for an “unfortunately”, haven’t I? – that’s not what I get visually from Katarsis. Looking at the boys, I instead mostly feel roused to storm the living room and complain bitterly about the awful injustice of having to do the washing up on Mondays and Thursdays. “It’s SOOOOO unfair! I’M GOING OUT!”
*door slams*
*door reopens*
“HAVE you washed my SHIRT?”
Somebody’s going to get this spot on eventually, and it’s going to win big when they do. Sadly though, by spending an entire minute of a three minute song repeatedly shouting the word “Tavo” and adopting a uniform of slate grey “things” (as we know, grey will NEVER go out of fashion), Katarsis have missed the mark for me.
I’ll keep looking and listening. The people who will nail the landing perfectly are out there somewhere, and honestly it’s going to be amazing when it happens.
Nick’s score: 6