New music: Cornelia Jakobs' brilliant Eurovision follow-up 'Rise'

Cornelia Jakobs

NEW MUSIC REVIEW: Sweden's 2022 Eurovision entrant Cornelia Jakobs has released her first single since finishing fourth in Turin at this year's contest - and it is a gem.

'Rise' was released on October 7, after Jakobs debuted it throughout her recent European tour in the northern summer. It's an anthemic belter of a track and shows how she has reinvented herself as a powerful pop artist with a full rock band setup.

Who is Cornelia Jakobs?

Cornelia first sprung onto the Swedish music scene in 2010 as a member of girl group Love Generation, who competed in the country's Eurovision contest Melodifestivalen in 2011 and 2012.

This year she entered as a solo artist and won the whole competition with her tug-at-the-heartstrings power ballad 'Hold Me Closer'. She finished fourth overall at Eurovision 2022 for Sweden, behind Spain's Chanel, the UK's Sam Ryder and winners Kalush Orchestra from Ukraine.

Along with being a jury and fan hit at this year's contest, Jakobs won one of the three Marcel Bezençon awards for 'Hold Me Closer', winning the Best Composer Award with co-writers David Zandén and Isa Molin.

'Rise' sounds like something written by one of the world's biggest bands

I never thought I'd mention U2 and Eurovision in the same sentence, but I am.

'Rise' has so many shades of The Edge's atmospheric guitar sounds at the start, as Cornelia delivers some tender vocals while keeping you hooked. It then progresses so to an upbeat, bass-filled verse, which sounds something taken straight out of Larry Mullen's best bits, and also contains an F-bomb (something so not Eurovision).

The chorus maintains the driving pace of the song before progressing to some powerful high notes mixed with her trademark nasally vocals, and it finishes with brilliant ending as Cornelia keeps on chanting 'I'm slowly getting closer to the light'.

I'll be upfront - while she didn't have the most bombastic stage production, I thought 'Hold Me Closer' was the best written and best overall track in this year's contest.

Cornelia and her song writing team are producing some of the slickest and best tracks I've heard from any Eurovision entrant in the last 10 years. 'Rise' is a perfect showcase for her pop-rock sound, and gives us the elements of her inner rock chick which we didn't see much of at Eurovision, bar a hair flick when the beats kicked in after the first minute of 'Hold Me Closer'.

Maybe its resonating with me more because of my own life situations and her heartfelt lyrics, but Cornelia Jakobs is making genuinely brilliant, relatable and classy pop music. She's putting the finishing touches on her debut album, and if this is any indication, it's shaping up to be something special.

Take a listen to 'Rise' below:

'Rise' is available for download and streaming on all platforms.

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