“Success” is a relative term where the Eurovision Song Contest is concerned. With around 40 countries competing every year, the average gap between victories – assuming equal song quality, which is a big assumption to make! – would be around four decades. As such, success has started to be measured in different ways: finishing on the left-hand side of the scoreboard is already seen as a minor triumph for many countries, while others are satisfied just to consistently reach the grand final at all. With this in mind, Malta can be said to have got its ESC bandwagon back on track. Although the glory days of podium finishes with Ira Losco and Chiara are gradually receding into the past, the Mediterranean island has turned around a run of near-consistent non-qualification to reach the Saturday night show for the last three years in succession.

Even then, though, Malta has only reached the top ten once since 2005 (with Gianluca’s “Tomorrow” in Malmö two years ago). Way back in November, the country reused its expensive Junior Eurovision venue to host the Malta Eurovision Song Contest to select its entry for ESC 2015. Despite notable competition from a group of singing nuns, it was 23-year-old Amber who won the ticket to Vienna. Although still young, she can look back on five years of experience in the Maltese national final. She even appeared on-stage at ESC 2012, making a – let’s be honest – fairly unnecessary cameo appearance towards the end of Kurt Calleja’s “This Is The Night”.

This year, she steps up to the front of the stage with a song called Warrior. Yes, another one – sadly she wasn’t drawn in the same semi-final as the Georgian entry with the same name, but if they both reach the grand final, the producers will surely be tempted to put them back-to-back in the running order if possible! Already a punchy song with a loud and forceful chorus, the new and revamped mix of the Maltese Warrior introduces dramatic strings and dynamic orchestration to accentuate the light and shade of the entry, although it does so at the risk of making the verse seem like an afterthought, more of a way of killing time until the chorus comes along.

My verdict? Well, I have various issues with the entry itself. I don’t particularly like the tone of Amber’s voice, and the main hook of the chorus is shouty and risks being seriously oversung. Moreover, I have a fundamental bias – and I acknowledge it is something of an irrational bias – against all these self-empowerment, “look at me I’m such a strong person” lyrics that seem to crop up in a Eurovision context with tedious regularity. I find it quite exhausting as a listener. My gut reaction is “Why are you nagging me about this? I don’t know you and I never disputed your strength in the first place!” I know this kind of message is aimed at generating empathy among an audience who might need a bit of picking up in their own lives, but sometimes I simply end up wondering whether “strong” is next to “loud” in the songwriting dictionary.

None of which makes a blind bit of difference to how Amber’s Warrior will perform at ESC 2015. Right now I’d classify it as a borderline-but-probable qualifier, sitting somewhere in that “7th to 12th in the semi-final” bracket. As I said above, Malta has become very adept at sneaking through the semi-finals, and there are some potentially friendly juries among the participants in the second semi-final, so it would take a brave man to bet against them – although if those high notes in the chorus go wrong for her, she might not get enough televotes to rescue her even with jury support. Assuming she makes it to Saturday night, though, I would expect her to be more of a Kurt Calleja or a Firelight than a Gianluca – the song and singer are far too ordinary to make an impact in a 27-song field, and so the lower right-hand side of the scoreboard beckons.

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