Lithuania LITHUANIA 2025 - Katarsis - Tavo akys

[ESC United Mod Team]

 

[rasmuslights]

What do you think about Katarsis? Fist listen and I got goosebumps, it really leaves many feelings for me, but we either flop with this or get to the top 10 in May. https://youtu.be/at1jUGRBRig?si=xq-mLOsHeMqB4Gbe

I love it! Would be in my top 5 of this season and is by far the best Lithuania has to offer.

 

[njdevils94]

Amoralu - Freedom

Its believed by those who were at the taping that Amoralu gave a terrific live performance. Can't see it breaking into the Top 2 though with no discernible chorus and it takes a long time to get going. There are already a number of moody sings in this semi which I don't think plays to her advantage.

 

[MopManMoss]

I will be watching heat 4 over national finals because I am loyal to Lietuva

 

[Mrm]

Oh my, Lithuanian sites' comments sections in FB were boiling yesterday cause of Black Biceps it's not that surprising tho, we Lithuanians love to do that in comments, rant about all the injustice in life generally, ESC is good to let it all out too but this time I kinda agree with that, 1st+3rd places in voting should be higher than 2nd+2nd, cause of fact that you simply won one of the votings. BB were not my thing and I doubt they had a tinniest chance to make it to Basel, but it's a bit sad for them what so ever.
Anyways, I'm more sad about Queens of Roses. Got a feeling that staging might flop with this kind of song about passion/desire, where you need to draw that thin line between being seductive and not being too vulgar. Don't know, maybe it was just me, but girls looked kinda shy on stage with this quite unusual role for them. And overall It felt like live version of song lost bunch of it's power/energy that had official video/audio, so it's sad that they didn't make it, but it was quite fair at the end I guess.
Overall, weak semi, no winner vibes at all here

Well then, is Keiino or Tamara Todevska stronger than Duncan Lawrence?

 

[njdevils94]

Trying to see what else is missing for this week's semi.

Ustin - You're the One

His staging will look very similar to the video.

 

[Mrm]

4th heat in Lithuania is so strong for me in studio version:

1. Amoralu 10/10
2. Liepa 10/10
———————-
3. Ustin 10/10
4. Katarsis 9/10
5. Joseph June 9/10
6. Godo Yorke 8/10
7. The Ditties 7/10
8. Mario Junes 5/10
9. Siga 2/10

I rank the final for now:

1. Justė Baradulinaitė 10/10 I LOVE “Tired” so much!
2. Anyanya 10/10
3. Petunija 10/10
4. Gebrasy 8/10
5. Goya 5/10
6. Noy 5/10

 

[Ziko]

For me almost opposite - I would rank it as the weakest one in my opinion. Apart from Katarsis (which are now my second fav next to Petunija) I don't like any of the songs for tonight.

Katarsis – Tavo akys /
Mario Junes – Bury Me /
Joseph June – Ko man nesakei /
Ustin – You're the One /
Godo Yorke - neparodai /
Amoralu – Freedom /
Siga – Walking with My Shadow /
Liepa – Ar mylėtum /
The Ditties – Zui Zu Bi /

For now I'm rooting for Petunija (have Noy as backup), but waiting for Katarsis to reach final, as mentioned above.

 

[lasse braun]

escunited is back!
my 2 pearls of this very high music level semi 4 are siga & kataris.
sigas song is more the catchy way but "tavo akys" is a monster from a song!
musicart!

 

[njdevils94]

There are a clear top 2 in Semi 4 on the Eurodiena poll.

 

[BernadetteCydonia]

Reviews time. The so called bloodbath semi. Let's see what's there to write home about.

1. Siga - Walking with My Shadow
This is infinite times worse when you remember this woman used to (or still sings) for Žalvarinis. Yeesh.

It's not bad per se, very much of a "rumba cha cha cha" template we've seen done better in Benidorm Fest (welcome back "La casa"). And I get that she wants to prove that she has range. But come on now, Siga, why do you have to become the budget Inga Valinskienė at her most fun? Also the lyrics in the chorus are lame too like... we left "La la la" rotting in the dust of semifinal 3, and in comes Siga's list of things what she does with her shadow (which is just the dark side of her... very original, very "she's not like other girls", very "she's so crazzzzzy love her") - walking, talking, dancing and singing, including the "la la la". This is a serious knee slapper, more please.
In the scale of the silliness of a serious act, this comes across as "camp but sad" unlike Il Senso's last year's offering which was "camp and hilarious", and I don't think that's going to benefit this like at all. Back to the 2007 LNK TV concert fodder you go.

2. Ustin - You’re the One
Never expected him in our NF in a thousand years, he's better at appearing on TV every Saturday night for the Lithuanian Strictly (which he may or may not have won in the past). That being said, I think it benefits a person if they can dance and sing for an act... unluckily his skill demonstration of choice ended up being wasted on a ballad. And a basic love/relationship piano ballad at that. It's less basic than "Love of My Life" by Petunija in terms of production, but it's still nonetheless basic. For shame. What positive thing I can say about this is that Ustin sounds decent on studio - it's not like an extraordinary kind of singing voice, but paired with an actually noteworthy ballad it could shine a bit brighter. X Factor Lithuania should've had another celebrity season to accomodate him for sure. It's just that... yeah. I really hope that he's the one taking in a "rumba cha cha cha" pastiche to Eurovizija.LT next year because he seems to be the kind of guy that might pull that off, considering he IS capable of dancing. He's no male Chanel or anything, nor as charismatic as Luca Hanni was, but like, he's wasting his potential on being dull. Do better next time, Ustin.
(The juries might not mind this, but it's not a strong enough song to survive the bloodbath of this semi.)

3. Godo Yorke - </3 neparodai
sidenote but mods pls can we have the NOPARSE option in this forum? pls n thnxs
Godo returns after being the best new alternative overpraised Lithuanian NF act by the juries in 2018... with a song that's a little bit of an indie radio hit / something that would be sent to a contest by a rational pop enjoyer. It's got its freshness, it's got its studio version energy, it's got a pleasant singer (eventhough sometimes she's hard to understand when she sings... especially for the one Instastory teaser of her song). It's lightweight fluff pop in the Frutiger Aero world. The chorus feels a little underproduced everytime it comes on, though. It keeps on building to something but never quite builds, and in the end it just... deflates. Leaves a lot to be desired. The lyrics are at least somewhat interesting in parts of the song, the ones I understand outside the chorus. But overall this is just... alright, nothing extraordinary, lots of songs in our NF like that feel like soft filler that does average (6 jury + 5 tele). I am looking forward to resurrect this song in 144p qualify as a Y2K girl ringtone to make it go viral if I ever feel like it.

4. Joseph June - Ko man nesakei?
His best effort by a distance. The other two entries before that were a little on the silly bordering, considering he came out of nowhere with "Deadly" and his quirky rapping thing, then with "Vacuum" he made the song a bit more upbeat and sang about a more relatable topic for those who don't date and don't encounter a "red flag parade" kind of woman. But on the silier side. Now "Ko man nesakei?" kicks some SERIOUS ass as a Joseph June track, and with all his previous entry mannerisms and all, but catchy, stylish, and groovy as all hell. The lyrics almost sound like a sequel to "Deadly", like, okay you didn't listen to my warning about this girl being deadly and now you talk in 1st person POV about how she treats you in the relationship. I really like this kind of synthpop. It just so happened to be stuck in the semi with the two specific names that got hype... which makes this the unfortunate third placer of the semi. As much as people can expect bad things happening to the contenders, they won't happen and you know it. Sit down and leave your conspiracy theories at bay for this one. I feel bad for Joseph June though because no matter how better he gets with every single entry, he'll always be one singular place short of the final... LRT PLEASE condense the number of songs/semifinals and/or make 3 songs each qualify in each semi next year, I beg of you.

5. Amoralu - Freedom
The one song I haven't heard prior to writing up the review. Her vocals are solid, the song seems to have a bit of tension throughout with its loud edgy percussion and minimalistic instrumental otherwise, so it kind of builds itself up to be this semi's "Tai kur namai". I don't know why did the song's mood have to die down so suddenly when the song got so slow, but at least we're getting some payoff with the last minute adopting the D'n'B beat. And then there's the "operatic" ending. This entire experience felt like a bit of a Raiven demo, if that was her track she'd amp up the dramatics at the end hard enough, like for "Veronika". And it made me be somewhat interested in what sounded like alternative R'n'B (for two minutes), which is something. I can already sense a decent live performance out of this, but again, it's in a semi that literally leaves no room to breathe for something chanceful that would've made it out of semi 1 (sorry I still maintain the idea that something was fundamentally wrong with "Tai kur namai" as a whole). I don't think it would've qualified out of that as easily, despite this vocalist apparently being decently known, but like... it's fairly decently competent-ish in a Baltic NF atmosphere, I guess. I hope she has better luck sometime later.

6. Katarsis - Tavo akys
Get ready for a winner contender double combo with this one. (NF winner I mean lol.)
I was lucky to hear it already through special means ahead of the release, so I eagerly awaited for this to drop and see what people think, because I first thought that we would have definitely qualified with "Aijā". It's not as Aijā-esque as "Impossible" by SHOWER last year felt, and that would've totally done an "Aijā" imo even in a semi of 15 songs and with UK/IE voting. This is different. And I really like this kind of atmospheric rock stuff. It has some sort of tension throughout the atmosphere, it has the vocal performance of someone who should relay it all raw all live at how emotionally broken and wanting to scream at the world one should be, I just imagine how hard would it hit if it was soundtracking a distraught teenager/young adult running away to the forest during a particularly foggy afternoon. And honestly I've been clamouring for us to send rock music in Eurovision - "Little By Little" is silly pop rock a la Suede, "Something" was very minimally rocky and its revamp tried to distinguish every last bit of electric guitar in it. It doesn't really matter that it's risky and we never sent something like this before (exactly like this, mind) - and you shush about Fusedmarc, it was rightfully labelled as risky disaster that was never gonna go anywhere. I'd for one be happy if this did end up winning and giving us a very compelling live performance to back it up off of, if anything gets other indie acts of Lithuania out of the woodwork, it should be the NF victory of Katarsis. (I really hoped for at least somebody to bring an indie song this NF, didn't think it would even come from these guys of which I kinda know little still from Lithuanian music compared to others.)
I'm not saying that this song blows my mind the most, there's way better captivating indie/alt rock out there FOR ME, but it's the best that we can give, why not?
Also, for those of you that worry about how this would be approached: tonight's jury consists of 2/5 of their people being affiliated with LRT Opus - radio station that I always think of being the one local radio station that really tries its hardest to promote the cool Lithuanian music (alt rock, indie pop, electro, punk, Monika Liu, Gabrielė Vilkickytė, all that stuff), and SHOWER was the jury winner in the last NF. Please. If Katarsis weren't to be praised, this would make the jury sound like the biggest hypocrites of all time. Now I doubt if they will really clinch the 12 in televote considering...

7. Liepa - Ar mylėtum?
...this exists.
Look, it's competently produced dance pop from DJ Jovani, arguably the biggest current DJ right now (Dynoro seems to have taken a break and Ten Walls is not as big as he used to be, and dj nevykele doesn't really count because she's hyperpop, not a DJ). It's got no compositional flaws in structure (apart from the last chorus that just seems to end - if I were a songwriter to this I'd be repeating the bridge by the end as much as I could), it's got a really great live singer behind it, I've seen the staging pics and it's very by-the-book Eurovision NF fanwank. And it's in Lithuanian, and the lyrics are rather Lithuanian as well (she sings "would you love me without ambers and long braids", because if there's two things Lithuania is associated with besides basketball, it's the abundance of amber everything and blondies in braids). I get it. It has a chance to be the safe Lithuanian pick just so that it could take us to the Eurovision final, because it's radio friendly, it's pop enough for the gays, it even sounds like a Loreen album track ripoff (more particularly it makes me feel like forever, iykyk).
But do we really need this?
I think that we have sent some really well produced pop over the years, it hasn't been the best or the most interesting (ffs we almost qualified with "Run with the Lions" and that was the most basic pop song we could ever have), but what foreigners remember about us is not for that, but for being weird and unlikeable in the 2000s - an image we started to slowly shed once our NF ended up having a proper name for once, but nonetheless, a strong one. And this year we have a couple songs that may seem weird, but are actually *likeable*, at least by foreigners. Liepa may have the "Luktelk" of the year (but not in that sense), but she's not a done deal for our NF because we have acts like Petunija and Katarsis strong enough to sound like really cool Eurovision representatives, and something that is rather unusual for Lithuania. With Liepa we're just playing it too safe, and that can get painfully boring.
Again, I don't hate this, but we can do better than this.

Chancewise, it's qualifying to the NF final all thanks to the fact that Liepa's got influencer friends, Jovani on the side yet again, and the jury comments that might seem hurtful because they overmentioned Loreen a shitload of times, but who else are they going to award second top points to? Thought so. And after that, an easy superfinal appearance awaits.

8. Mario Junes - Bury Me
The biggest NF returnee disappointment of 2025. I don't usually trust returnees to return with something that will keep me interested, considering I am usually drawn into the songs rather than artists (although artists do also equally excite me from time to time, if I know they'll deliver the quality), but even then, I have to say that I expected Mario Junes to be challenging for a shock qualification of this semi together with Joseph June... this is just a well produced but plain underwhelming track. I barely felt anything out of it. I just thought to myself, "oh cool he once again sings about how miserable he feels", and the song sadly kind of matched the lyrics... because it's miserably plain mid. I expect him to somehow do a decent job for this live, but nothing more than that. Back to the drawing board we go with this one.
(Seriously, "Do What You Do" was super badass in how it sounded, at least TO ME. That's an instrumental to feel something to. Now I'm just )

9. The Ditties - Zui Zu Bi
Continuing the bold tradition of closing the semi with a novelty, except this time it's actually good (and imo Black Biceps's novelty was just as good). I have once randomly commented "The Ditties for Eurovision!" on their "Run with the Lions" cover, because afterall, they have been doing this 60s retro revival as their gimmick for years, and we really would've been okay with it in the NF (by "we" I mean "I"). Donata was never a real curly Sue, and I know she wasn't because never in her professional career had she ever submitted a Eurovision NF song she's written by herself, or at least the kind of one that felt truly her - all she ever did was do a random bigband song in 2012, a plain empowerment anthem that's so plain that it's even worse than her Ylva and Linda era, retro pastiches, and now the middling Ylva and Linda era. Poor her...

But back to the Ditties.
It's very their kind of sound, we did also have a little bit of this retro music back in the day, but like, not very precisely Americanized - I'm thinking of "Senieji Vilniaus stogai", and Monika Liu's stylish retro sound. I'm surprised it doesn't go fully electroswing repellent-like like "Still in Love with You", it's just so basic cutesy vintage, with lovely chord choices in the chorus. Decently produced and executed, but I don't think it's very up to fashion with a typical Eurovizija.LT viewer to be sent to the NF final, let alone Eurovision. They might seem somewhat charismatic, but not in a Serbian Nina charismatic way - "Zui Zu Bi" is something you get when you ask a prompt generator to write you a generic retro beat song with scatsinging, sung by groovy ladies. I like this track though. Again, it's not going to qualify, maybe should do a 7+7 tele+jury split, like most 7+7 acts in previous semis do. At least they tried on the Eurovision NF stage and I hope they're happy with what came out of it.

-----------------------------------

So that was that for another week, maybe I don't feel as hopeless as I felt earlier. I do feel bad for Joseph June who'll likely break the "4th drawn act from a Eurovizija.LT semi qualifies" streak tonight, but we've seen plenty of surprises over the years for our NFs so who knows what will come out next.

 

[MopManMoss]

Given I listen to Joseph June and katarsis during the off season I'm pretty bias going in, happy to see the love of my life on the jury today

 

[MopManMoss]

Vaccum is in my top 3 NF songs of all time I'm braindead I think

 

[MopManMoss]

I'm still of the opinion that this is less good than a lot of the Katarsis discography but the vocals are so good live it's actually absurd

 

[Rocket man]

well that just gave me chills. If Katarsis don't represent LIthuania this year, then wtf. I knew nothing about them before but that was great.

 

[Smudy]

Katarsis and Amoralu through to the final! Katarsis got won both jury and televote.

 

[Rocket man]

So Katarsis wins the jury vote and the televote in this semi-final.

I absolutely love this, I really hope Lithuania choose this for their entry this year. This could be Lithuania's strongest entry for Eurovision ever.

 

[Juliette]

I have been rooting for Katarsis, so yay

 

[MopManMoss]

I thought Amoralu was very good actually but yes sad for Joseph June my favourite little Lithuanian freak

 

[Rocket man]

I thought Amoralu was very good actually but yes sad for Joseph June my favourite little Lithuanian freak

yeah I thought her performance was very good too, I'm glad she went through. I thought this was the best semi-final so far. Again the right two songs went through to the final.

 

[agnobu]

With Katarsis everything is clear (great!), but I really didn't expect anything from Amoralu and I was blown away by how engaging and good it was. The two that I wanted to make it to the finals made it. But yes, in this semi-final there were much more songs that were interesting compared to the other semi-finals.