Warhaus – Karaoke Moon

Founded in 2004 by Maarten Devoldere, Balthazar reached their debut album in 2010 and quickly became one of Belgium's most popular indie pop-rock bands, before quickly conquering the continent and then the world. So far they have released five great albums and have tens of millions of listens, but Devoldere also had a solo project in the pipeline from the start, which finally debuted in 2016 as Warhaus and has been running in tandem with Balthazar ever since. What's more, they have been working side by side in blocks, split into smaller periods, as the 2016 debut Warhaus (We fucked a flame into being) was followed by a second LP (Warhaus) the following year, and then a Balthazar period with two albums (Fever - 2019, Sand - 2021). Both the catchy, elegiac, groovy pop band and the sophisticated chamber pop solo project are popular in Hungary, and Devoldere has performed with both. In 2022, Warhaus' activity was back on, with Ha Ha Heartbreak proving to be a stronger album than before, but a follow-up is on the way, and it fits into the upward trajectory, the singer-songwriter's most colourful release to date, led by the soaring single Where The Names Are Real.

Devoldere had a very active songwriting period after Ha Ha Heartbreak, writing fifty songs that he felt had plenty of material for the next Warhaus album. But after the demos were done, his producer, Jasper Maekelberg (also from Belgium and known from Faces On TV), told him that we could do better than that, and they set about rewriting, reworking and adding to the material. The resulting Karaoke Moon, due on 22 November, shows Warhaus' sophisticated, elegantly orchestrated chamber pop in all its glory, and in a different way too, as the heartbreaking atmospheres of the previous album are here replaced by a thousand shades of the liberation of newfound love. A soaring live concert is also to be expected.