Review: AWS - Viszlat Nyar - Hungary

TellyStats Rating:

7 Day YouTube Views: 92,063
7 Day YouTube Likes: 3,299

Following an ultra-cultural 2017 entry, Hungary return this year with Viszlat Nyar (Goodbye Summer) a punk-rock track with hint of Linkin Park in the vocals.

The music video for non-Hungarian speakers is a little jarring, pictures of a perfectly happy looking childhood mixed with angry screams of a tortured soul. It's quite difficult to take what they're saying seriously when the video is punctuated with clips of the band members horseriding, sailing and being bathed by their mother as a baby. What's their problem anyway? The song as far as metal goes is typical of what most teenagers aged 14 - 16 listen to in that awkard school phase, you don't have to understand the lyrics to get the gist of whatever they're singing about, let's face it, all metal basically serves the 'you-don't-understand-the-pain-deep-inside-my-soul' market.

Despite this, the Viszlat Nyar is still quite listenable, isn't just a giant mishmash of noise and has a consistent chorus section. One unsual part of the song (which may not be a part of the live version) is the long section two-thirds of the way through that is an almost minute-long musical interlude, a guitar solo entering the mix halfway through - how does this translate on stage? It's not as if much is even happening in the first 20 seconds to rock out to and keep the audience's eyes occupied.

Eurovision has a reputation for camp, cheesy Europop but this track shows us why this reputation is largely without merit these days - most countries at least try something a little different or something cultural, a pleasant-but-catchy song doesn't cut the mustard like it used to. But the question is: Can a metal track this heavy really make an impact at Eurovision? The answer in this case is almost certainly no. Ask anyone where rock was successful and the only real answer is Lordi but let's not pretend they didn't have a whole other thing going on, plus Viszlat Nyar is much heavier and less accessible than Hard Rock Hallelujah. For the Eurovision audience this will more-or-less just be a man screaming and lots of noise. The YouTube stats back this up with some of the lowest figures of any entry this year. Hungary in our book are down as a no-qualifier.