Albania 2021 - Kastro Zizo - Vallja e Jetës

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***STOP PRESS***

So we finally got to see this live, and it was every bit as dramatic as we'd hoped - although with slightly less on stage personnel than we'd anticipated. But it also turns out that the boy Zizo is a slightly unsavoury character, with an unapologetic history of blackface and a somewhat dismissive view on Eurovision - all wrapped up in an ego that would struggle to fit into the Ahoy. So watch with interest, but do so with full knowledge that he's sadly a bit of a prat.

***ORIGINAL REVIEW***

And finally we have some proper contenders! Woo hoo!

You can always rely on the Albanians to deliver a slate of dark, minor key pop songs, moody ballads and blokes with impossibly deep voices telling us about their hardships over jangly guitars. But the thing we look forward to the most each year is trying to work out which is going to be the most impressive in the live sphere. And this one's feels like it's just crying out for a monster of a live performance.

The thing is, now they've done away with their slightly cramped indoor FiK stage and are sending the whole show outdoors (In December? In Albania? Are they quite, and beautifully, bonkers?), the artists may just be given a little more room to mess about with the staging. And if there's one thing we know it's a song that begs for a visual.

This is also one song that we'd be really interested to see with an orchestra (if they're actually able to have one in the bleak Balkan winter, that is). It could go either way. All those stringy things could either add to already enormo-sound of the production, or totally knock the bold edges off - but we can't wait to find out.

We suspect that this is probably no winner unless the boy Zizo is some kind of massive star back home - but then again after all these years if there's one thing we've learned about Albania is that this is one show that you can never totally predict. But all the same, it's a big bold slice of noisy nonsense that stomps about just lovely. Can't bloody wait!