Review: Sennek - A Matter Of Time - Belgium

TellyStats Rating:

7 Day YouTube Views: 543,569
7 Day YouTube Likes: 10,806

Belgium are back with a sound echoing the dark and sullen tones of last year's "City Lights" by Blanche. A wordy number where the focus is on the artistry and the message rather than the camp theatrics we often see from Eurovision performances. Belgium came 4th last year in the televote, however the judges weren't quite so generous placing City Lights in 9th. This year's offering has a Bond-theme quality to it with whimsical lyrics about something not-quite-specified, the chorus raises the tempo a little before settling back into the verbose verses.

Musically, my personal feeling is that Sennek's offering in "A Matter Of Time" is a step backwards compared to last year. City Lights had an urgency, an intensity to it whereas A Matter Of Time feels more lackadaisical, the song never really builds - you could listen to the first minute of this song and that would be enough, the verses are hardly something you'd sing along to with much gusto and the chorus lacks a decent hook to latch people in. Remember, the vast majority of people will be watching these Eurovision performances for the first time on the night of the final, does A Matter Of Time have the oomph to encourage people to vote for it?

Artistically though, the song is of decent quality for which I've given it an extra half-star in our rating. This isn't throwaway pop and effort has been made to produce a song with a degree of substance and that has to count for something - this is especially noticable when placed next to Jessica Mauboy's "We Got Love" (6th in the betting markets) which is as vacuous as pop songs get in terms of depth. Sennek is a competent singer and I've no reason to believe she'll not provide anything but a faithful reproduction of the song in the official video come the final. For a track like this though, a lot depends on the staging and the running order, if it's just her standing alone in the middle of the stage in an early slot then Belgium could be in for a difficult evening.

A Matter Of Time is currently 4th in the betting markets, that's too high, this feels like a song that can easily be hyped up but then fail to make an impact on the night. Sennek's YouTube stats also suggest that her price is unjustified, her YouTube video Views and Likes are well in the mix with other songs that are way further down in the betting markets. We predict she'll end up in perhaps 8th or 9th place on the day, anything above 5th place just doesn't feel right.