Kiss Kiss Goodbye (Czechia 2025)

We've got Adonxs from Czechia next, with I Can't Go On Kiss Kiss Goodbye :P

(Source)

Sorry, just my little joke. But my brain can't let go of how those specific lines sound almost alike.

Lyrics: 56%
Composition: 60%
Vocals: 76%
Staging: 58%
Vibes: 70%
Overall: 64.0%

Right, so before we start, I saw a comment on Youtube somewhere that Adonxs started to lag right before the second chorus and missed the entry for the second chorus because his in-ear was borked and he couldn't hear his cues, only his own singing and the audience feedback. 

ESC on Youtube has replaced the performance-specific video (where Adonxs misses his entry) with the one during the Dress Rehearsal (the one in the full Second Semi-Final video hasn't been replaced), so I assume that the rumour must be largely true, otherwise I'm not sure why they would've allowed the replacement.

Unfortunately I still have to take the actual Semi performance into account because that was what we saw.

Verdict: Promised a lot more than it could deliver.

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LYRICS - Total: 14/25 (56%)
Subject Matter: 6/10
Effective Use of Language: 3/5
Clarity: 2/5
Flow: 3/5

This song is ostensibly about a relationship breakup - at least, I'm pretty sure you'd be forgiven for thinking that just from reading the lyrics.

Guess what? It's not. It's about Adonxs' father - both according to the music video (where he gives up on an opportunity to time travel 100 years into the future to return to 23 years ago where he presumably watches his father abandon him) and to Adonxs himself.

That was NOT something I picked up on solely from the lyrics, and I'm not sure whether it's because the lyrics are so generic, the references are too subtle, or both. The closest I can get to the idea would be from the "you seemed so holy" line, which kind of implies that the other person is of a "higher" status, somehow, and maybe "drunken apathy" which makes a lot more sense once you know the context. But I still don't think it was obvious. Sure, the themes of loss and of learning to be okay with letting go are there, but it still feels rather generic.

Most of the lyrics go by okay, but then there are other bits that sound awkward ("it almost moved me" feels one syllable too long). On the whole it could be better; the phrases don't really sound like they flow all the way through the song.

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COMPOSITION - Total: 12/20 (60%)
Melody/Bass: 3.5/5
Instrumentation: 3/5
Development: 3/5
Coherence: 2.5/5

Right. Let's get the obvious out of the way first. Which, in this case, is that Adonxs has probably attended the Noa Kirel School of Gratuitous Dance Breaks. (Okay, to be fair, this one actually was a dance break, not a flailing acro/yoga session, and there's potentially more of a purpose to this one, if you stretch. But still.)

But I guess my issue with this can be summed up with: What on earth is that instrumental doing there? Why is it there? It crashes like a meteor into a song that has built up a powerful, sweeping, emotional, dramatic soundscape, and acts as an immersion-breaking tension-breaker - only to dive right back into the tension afterwards, with only the bass going at double speed, and then all the way back into the original soundscape. 

My closest, most charitable guess is that it represents Adonxs trying to leave the past behind, trying to replace his heartbreak with something much more vividly colourful and alive, something that gets him moving on rather than stuck in his melancholy. And then at the end of it all, he still has to come back to that space of melancholy and neglect that will take him some time to recover from. Which... I suppose is fine, but the section still kind of stands out like a sore thumb.

On the whole, I like the melody. It's grand and sweeping but stuttering at times in the bass, and feels like an successful representation of the state of melancholy, of the highs and lows that accompany Adonxs as he... grieves? I suppose. The instrumentation, though, doesn't feel particularly noticeable in its support of the music.

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VOCALS - Total: 19/25 (76%)
Vocals: 16/20
Immersion: 3/5

Adonxs' vocals are good. Occasional shakiness here and there, but there are plenty of leaps and fast sections, so it's not as if he was singing something easy and messing up.  

Now, about immersion - I'm not so sure I feel the emotion that's supposed to be there. A lot of it feels like Adonxs being technically okay, but not truly emoting. "Don't give me half apologies / drunken apathy / over and over again" feels like a perfect line for invoking some anger or frustration, but to me, it felt like there was not much of that here. It felt more like the focus was on singing well and less on delivering an emotional story.

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STAGING - Total: 14.5/25 (58%)
The Show: 5/10
The Story: 6/10
Outfits: 3.5/5

I liked the significance of the change from his initial tarred/tainted black on white outfit to a full white one, which makes sense in the context of learning to let the stained past go. Adonxs enters, weighed down by his history, and when he sings "when you said you love me, it almost fooled me", he casts the shroud of "half apologies, drunken apathy / over and over again" aside with a "kiss, kiss goodbye", allowing him to approach his future with as much of a clean slate as he can. Perhaps the dancers/people around him are the ones helping to pull him out of that funk he finds himself in. It's not all that explicit - hell, it's not even all that implicit - but eh. Overall, though, that seems to be about it. 

Gratuitous dance break is gratuitous.

The main problem here... is that he doesn't always sing with the music. At points, he can't sing fast enough to catch up to the words. Now, to be fair, the song can be pretty wordy, and getting through everything can be quite a mouthful (see: "Only one survives, when the night arrives / will you be my ride or die?") - but it's also clear that Adonxs is stumbling, which kind of brings the score down a little.

The biggest oopsie happened in the second chorus, where he misses the right time to join in - but there's even a hint of it in the end of the prechorus, where he's clearly already lagging behind a little.

Not the best package, as a result.

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VIBES - 70%
Pretty nice.