Since May 2014, everybody in Europe knows who Conchita Wurst is. The drag act won the Eurovision Song Contest for Austria with her brilliant song ‘Rise Like A Phoenix’. Conchita surprised everyone with a flawless vocal and a beautiful track and went on to receive quite a lot of ‘douze points’. Although Wurst hasn’t been releasing any new music after her victory, she never disappeared from the public eye. She performed at a whole lot of gay pride events around Europe and even sang in front of the European parliament. Now it is time for a follow up single. Earlier this week she premiered the song ‘Heroes’ and it shows off a quite different side to Conchita.

Wurst gained huge success with the big, dramatic ballad ‘Rise Like A Phoenix’, that reminded a bit of a bond soundtrack, especially the ones by Shirley Bassey. ‘Heroes’ sounds whole lot more contemporary compared to this. Luckily, this does not mean Conchita’s big voice and a fair bit of drama is gone though. The new single could still be described as a midtempo track with a vivacious chorus, but especially the production and instrumentation is quite different to anything she has done before. It sounds contemporary and fresh, maybe even something Ryan Tedder could have written for one of the big pop girls. The production is very detailed with all sorts of little vocal background sounds which make the song stand out a little more. The production is more than servicable in bringing to the front the beautiful melody in ‘Heroes’.

If I am being completely honest, I can tell you I was not completely convinced after hearing the song once or twice, but when I gave it another try the beauty of the toned down verses, Tom’s (Conchita’s real name) strong vocals and the addition of the choir really clicked with me. Although the song starts out quite calm, Conchita would not be Conchita if there wasn’t a big note in the middle-eight. This is followed by the last chorus where she slightly changed the melody, which is absolutely the best moment of the track. ‘And we shine till the colors light up the sky’ gets to me every time. ‘Heroes’ shows Conchita can do more than slightly old fashioned ballads and she proves she is definitely not a one day fly. This makes me all the more excited for her debut album.