Poison Cake (Croatia 2025)

Representing Croatia this year, we have Marko Bošnjak with Poison Cake.

(Source)

Lyrics: 54%
Composition: 52.5%
Vocals: 74%
Staging: 52%
Vibes: 35%
Overall: 54.1%

Verdict: Unfortunately, I'm not very excited about this one. Oh, Croatia, it was a long fall from Rim Tim Tagi Dim to this.

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LYRICS - Total: 13.5/25 (54%)
Subject Matter: 5.5/10
Effective Use of Language: 1/5
Clarity: 4/5
Flow: 3/5

Mildly interesting revenge story. At least it's not a tired love song. 

The lyrics are... not good. 

"Tasty, tasty, yum, yum, tasty" sounds kind of childish. "Don't be scared, you'll be buried tomorrow" just sounds weird (What are they supposed to be scared of, being left unburied? But then the authorities would find your killer so much more easily). 

Add that to "servant slave" (which are totally different things, by the way. Slaves are indentured and have no choice; servants are paid and can leave whenever they want to), "serpent snake" (why both, "serpent snake"? They mean the same thing in terms of biology, but in terms of usage they're totally different - snake is more biological and serpent is more mythological) and "genuflect and pray". I mean, "genuflect" doesn't match the type of language used in the rest of the song! On one hand, you have "genuflect". On the other, you have... "yum yum tasty." Uh... no.

And the chorus is basically just "Poison cake". Over and over and over again. Like 20 times.

Nope. It feels like the lyrics were written by a 10-year-old who just learned how to use a thesaurus.

Ok, so. I feel like now I need to change the way I'm rating this category because 52% feels far too high.

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COMPOSITION - Total: 10.5/20 (52.5%)
Melody/Bass: 2.5/5
Instrumentation: 3/5
Development: 3/5
Coherence: 2/5

What the fuck is up with that chorus. Weird screams, weird effects, too many voices. It's too much lmao.

And, um, the acts of this song feel pretty disjointed? There's the emo opening, then the angry revenge declaration, then the sinister yum yum tasty, and then we're back to angry POISON CAKE, then back to emo. I guess the song does build on its introduction and brings in new ideas, but I don't think it was done well. Like, I guess I can see where the song tries to fit together, but on the whole it's just giving "three songs in a trenchcoat". Actually, not even three. Maybe four or five. Speaking musically, I'm not really liking this thing as a whole package.

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VOCALS - Total: 18.5/25 (74%)
Vocals: 14/20
Immersion: 4.5/5

He sings with passion. Couple of missed notes if I heard right, but nothing too egregious. Nothing too impressive either.

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STAGING - Total: 13/25 (52%)
The Show: 4/10
The Story: 5.5/10
Outfits: 3.5/5

I don't want to get into the habit of comparing this to the respective National Final performance, since this review is meant to be based only on the Eurovision SF/GF performances. But I do want to give a shoutout to Marko and team for changing up the vibe of the sweet portion. Previously, it was a complete mood whiplash, going from evil to bubbly sweet and back to evil, which made it seem far too unhinged. But now that prechorus is sinisterly sweet rather than bubbly childishly sweet, which is a glowup the performance very much needed.

The red/green colour combo works very well. I don't know if I've been conditioned to think of green as evil (I'm looking at you, She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named), but there definitely is an undercurrent of evilness to the lighting as it flashes between red and green (and black) that works nicely. Even the pink of the pre-chorus feels nicely overly-saccharine.

That said.

I hate the constant jump cuts. I hate the vibrating effects. It makes for a show that's hard to follow - and what makes it worse is that they seem to just be there for the sake of being there, rather than adding to any part of the story. And I don't understand how that whole last bit is relevant to whatever's going on. Him punching the air with his legs doing some kind of forward crab walk, the dancers going from side to side; it's just... uh?

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VIBES - 35%
Not my thing. Don't get it.