Shh (Cyprus 2025)

And next up we have Cyprus' William Lee Adams Theo Evans!

(Source)

Lyrics: 70%
Composition: 60%
Vocals: 50%
Staging: 32%
Vibes: 65%
Overall: 55.4%

Verdict: Theo really should've taken his own advice and gone "Shh" about who the song was really about.

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LYRICS - Total: 17.5/25 (70%)
Subject Matter: 10/10
Effective Use of Language: 4/5
Clarity: 0/5
Flow: 3.5/5

I like Greek Mythology. I like riddles. And for that reason, this this song initially felt very intriguing. It was like a puzzle waiting to be solved, with all the pieces in front of me. The "puzzle in the song" aspect felt very, very fresh. I went through the lyrics and thought it simply had to be about Narcissus (or maybe Adonis). It's clearly about a beautiful person ("golden locks", "eyes so captivating") who's a little self-absorbed/arrogant ("I've been told I am a little overconfident / and this will be my downfall" and "my dеsire and my love got me in troublе" later on) and faces a bad end ("I fell in deep, I lost my heartbeat / stuck in between, heaven and hell in me"). I mean, Narcissus fits this to a tee, and Cyprus was part of the Greek world/sphere of influence so there could probably be some sort of cultural connection, too. IT EVEN MENTIONS TEARS (and blood) TO FLOWERS for heaven's sake! 

And then Theo revealed who it was about.

The Vitruvian Man... 

...wait, WHAT?!

... talk about a letdown. This was a wholly unsatisfying answer. I mean, Theo mentions that it's about "the balance between chaos and order, beauty and imperfection, the eternal search for identity within symmetry" - but seriously, what the fuck? PLEASE MAKE IT MAKE SENSE. 

I mean, if it was Narcissus, then the title (Shh) too would be relevant, because Narcissus and Echo are linked mythologically - the death (or transformation of both) stem from Echo not holding her tongue and getting cursed to forever repeat the words of others. But NOOOO.

What the hell are we "Shh"ing for?! How is the Vitruvian Man overconfident? What enemies does the Vitruvian Man have that he could get cheated by?!

Eh. My headcanon will always be "it's Narcissus". Or anyone else that meets the criteria the lyrics mention. Regardless of what Theo says.

I bet if you asked ChatGPT who the song was about (even though it technically doesn't think - it does the whole Shakespeare thing, except in this case it's "all the text is data, and all the words and sentences merely vectors"), it'd say Narcissus. I'm pretty sure of it.

Alright. Rant over. Fun subject matter. Trash clarity.

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

I don't really have anything much to say about this. It kind of just... is what it is. It doesn't feel particularly safe but also not particularly risky, and it doesn't feel like it plays with the composition or the melody much. There's a long note (which wasn't sung all that well), sure, but melodically it didn't feel impressive or climactic either. All in all, I felt that musically the whole song was just very mid and inoffensive.

The soundscape on the whole is somewhat interesting - futuristic? with a hint of dystopian, but the middle 8 in between choruses just feels very... purposeless. I don't know, I might be wrong, but I don't feel like that's all that much here.

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VOCALS - Total: 12.5/25 (50%)
Vocals: 9/20
Immersion: 3.5/5

The singing was... not great. There were several notes that were off (though not too terribly), his voice was a little dubious/weak, and he couldn't hit the climax notes with strength. I'm not sure if the staging was too ambitious or if it was something else, but the "if you know my name, then keep it a secret" bits definitely suffered, as did the other high notes. It was... an unimpressive performance.

Hell, it sounded like there was a section in the middle of the song where Theo kinda nopes out and the prerecorded vocal went on without him. He didn't even sing "Hush", he just went "HUHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."

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STAGING - Total: 8/25 (32%)
The Show: 3/10
The Story: 2.5/10
Outfits: 2.5/5

Um.

Right, so let's put aside the whole "why the fuck are you not Narcissus" for a moment. Aside from the starting sequence where Theo and his dancers emulate the Vitruvian Man, I don't get the relevance of the show to the Vitruvian Man at all. Is there some VM lore that I'm unaware of?

The show itself feels rather... I don't know. There's nothing there. There's the scaffolds, and they're interacting with the scaffolds in a way that doesn't excite me at all. It's giving "adults told to play on a jungle gym, except they're not having fun". There's nothing that really impresses. Like, not even a human flag, which while probably irrelevant, would at least be something to look at. There wasn't even an attempt at word painting. The scaffolding gives them height, but it wasn't even used for... I don't know, something like "in the ground, in the sky, in the afterlife", which, while cheesy, would've at least been related.

The lighting isn't great either. The strobing is annoying (at least with Red Sebastian you knew what you were getting into) and the colours don't seem to work. Why red (again)? The outfits don't work. What is it supposed to be? What is it supposed to represent? Wasn't the Vitruvian Man usually depicted without clothes? Not that they could do that here, but really, even if there was thought put into it, to me it just felt very low effort. Even not wearing tops and going for the "oh hey hot guys" angle would've been better than what we got.

If we take Theo at his word and accept that this song is supposed to be about balance, chaos vs order, beauty vs imperfection, identity within symmetry this comes down hard on the chaos and imperfection side but has no balance here. I don't know. Maybe it's just me. But I just don't understand the vision for this. 

Let's see what the man himself says:

"“Shh” is about the Vitruvian Man. Not just the drawing, not just the ideal, but what he represents: the balance between chaos and order, beauty and imperfection, the eternal search for identity within symmetry. We wanted to give life to this symbol. To show that even the “ideal man” hides secrets. That perfection is a mask, and behind it, there’s someone who’s never truly seen."

- Theo Evan 

... nope. I still don't understand it.

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VIBES - 65%
Song is okay. That's all, really.