Poland 2022: Krystian Ochman with ‘River’
Poland resisted the urge to provide another national final upset, instead going with market favourite Ochman and ‘River’:
Let's take this from the start, the Ochman rumours last year first sparked some excitement as they did they did this again, and rightly so- the guy's a talent. And then River was floating around for a while this season, first in snippet form, then the full demo and then the full thing and at every stage I've felt it's strong, it's good, but it's not great. His performance last night in the national final was not particularly engaging but I actually feel he's better than the material.
‘River’ to me is an unspectacular song. There's a good progression, the instrumentation is nice but there's no moment that really gives any goosebumps melodically. Lyrically this is actually quite poor but that's by the by for most juries and viewers. The few operatic notes left in this final cut don't really do much either- it's not an interesting mix of genres like some of his work, they're in this fairly standard song because he can hit them and not much else.
I don't dislike this at all, but I'm not sure on what level this beats out Italy whilst Australia's Sheldon Riley has a better song (the rest we'll see about) in the male ballad category alone. Poland of course do have diaspora backing and they will come out for this unlike some of the dross they've sent recently so their chances have to be respected, especially with a song that should gather jury support.
The staging and Krystian's connection with the camera of course needs to be worked on by the time this gets to Eurovision but it seems unlikely to either blow us away or be a real mess- Poland generally get their ballads staged adequately at a minimum.
Semi Final 2 is a good staging ground and it will be a real threat there but this hasn't felt like a winner at any point so far, instead falling in that middle top 10 area, and I'd say it's quite reliant on a few slip ups and dissapointments from the remaining countries if it's to come more seriously into the discussion.
Personal Rating: 6/10
Competitive Rating: 8/10
Early Prediction: Semi 2 1st-4th, Final 4th-8th