On the stump with Hump: a first listen to our Eurovision entry

It wasn't quite queues outside HMV for the release of Be Here Now, but for many Eurovision acolytes, the release of Engelbert Humperdinck's 2012 entry yesterday was more anticipated than Daz Sampson's "Teenage Life" or many of the UK's recent Euro flops.

Under the steady tutelage of a man with a star on Hollywood Boulevard, it was unlikely to preface the beginning of another "nil poi" disaster for the UK. (Unless we invade Armenia in the next eight weeks, provoking a Humperdinck-focused backlash.)

"Love Will Set You Free", written by Martin Terefe and Sacha Skarbek, combines the smooth-as-yoghurt vocals which are Humperdinck's trademark with a rather sinister-sounding Spanish guitar part plus – what else? – soaring strings. It's a tale of a lover lost to another man. And, it's actually rather nice.

(Skarbek, incidentally, was 33 per cent responsible for James Blunt's "You're Beautiful", so let's assume that co-writing the best UK Eurovision track in years is some kind of national service-based penance.) Yet, despite the prowess of the Hump, the most intriguing entry yet remains Montenegro's.

It's performed by Montenegrin "media manipulator" and performer Rambo Amadeus, whose video for "Euro Neuro" features Amadeus dressed as an Adriatic Rab C Nesbitt trotting through various Montenegrin glamour spots with a donkey. This is set to Amadeus grumbling over a mixture of funk basslines, Balkan strings and Slavic folk.

Which – we're sorry to say, Engelbert – has probably got our vote for now.