Belarus is often one of the earliest countries to select its Eurovision entry, and the national final staging – and the quality of the webstream! – isn’t always the best. Coupled with the local producers’ propensity for changing the selected song after the preselection stage anyway (a habit they appear to have kicked in recent years), it’s understandable that fans often ignore Belarus once the season for endless speculation and prediction rolls around. And yet the facts speak for themselves: previously a persistent semi-final struggler, Belarus have qualified for the grand final with relative ease in the last two years, chalking up a very respectable 16h-place finish on each occasion.

The artists tasked with continuing this run of good form are Uzari and Maimuna, a singer and a violinist, who will grace ESC 2015 with the song Time. As is customary, the song has received a bit of a production revamp since winning the national final, and I can’t be the only fan to have written off the duo’s qualification chances only to re-evaluate them now that all the other entries have been chosen. Time has precisely zero edge, being a very conventional bit of Eurovision pop that could only really come from the eastern side of the continent – but in a year (and a semi-final) with little in the way of tempo, it constitutes one of the more upbeat songs in the competition, and comes as a very welcome relief in that sense.

My verdict is that this is an unspectacular but solid choice from Belarus. I do have a few reservations about the lyrics – in what way is time like thunder, please? – but the violin hook sets it aside (and might be a useful visual trick too), while the strong chorus and recurring melodic theme should appeal to the target audience in the first semi-final. I doubt it’ll do much in the final if it gets there – another 16th place is probably the ceiling of its ambition – but I would be quite surprised if it doesn’t get there.

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