Paris (AFP)

"We discovered that we had a prophetic album", confides to AFP Jinte Deprez, leader of Balthazar, whose record, written before the health crisis, talks about time put on pause, in a beautiful pop and electro setting.

Released on Friday, the Belgians' album is called "Sand" ("Sable") because it relates to the content of the hourglass.

And the cover represents a strange creature, resigned and sad, in a waiting room.

"This cover was chosen before the arrival of the Covid-19, but it is nevertheless the perfect image to illustrate what we are all going through", comments Jinte Deprez, one of the two leading minds of the group with Maarten Devoldere.

In the song "Hourglass" ("Hourglass") we also hear "time moves slowly".

"Yes, once we were done, we found out that we had a prophetic album about our lives during the health crisis. And to think that our previous album was called + Fever + (Fever) ..."

"Sand" is the fifth opus of Balthazar, a group which quickly established itself in the independent circuit and was dubbed by another Belgian group with an international aura, dEUS.

The leader of the latter, Tom Barman, declared in The Guardian in 2012: "Balthazar, they are very good on stage, they have a great singer, good songs, limpid melodies".

- The Covid, "sixth musician" -

Bien vu: If the texts of Balthazar infuse in spleen, the group always pushes to dance on its carpet of pop mixed with electro, with funk or soul seams.

The sound architecture of "Sand" (at Pias) was this time largely induced by the consequences of the pandemic.

"We wrote the album when we were on the previous tour, we rediscovered what it was like to be a band together (Jinte also has a solo project, J. Bernardt, just like Maarten with Warhaus) and we wanted record it in the studio under live conditions, ”says the guitarist.

But containment has arrived.

"We had to change everything to finish the album, we couldn't be in the studio together anymore, so we injected more electronics, with samples, continues Jinte. It's as if the Covid-19 had become the sixth. musician, or producer! ".

"But it's good, it led to a different form for some songs, and I like when external elements influence an album, take us out of total control. We have been towards a minimalist production which has good", develops Dutch-speaking, which is spoken in English in an interview.

- Tarantino atmosphere -

And basically, why is time recurring among the two young people in their thirties at the head of the quintet?

"All of our albums are biographical. There is always one of the two, Maarten or me, in full rupture when writing the album (laughs), but it's true that this is the first time that time also comes back often. Maybe with age we don't want to wait any longer, "Jinte analyzes.

The clips for "You won't come around" and "On a roll" also play on this idea of ​​time passing or not passing.

The first with a hypnotic loop, the second with the same scene replayed and more and more bloody.

"The loop is good when we have reduced means to shoot in the midst of a health crisis, and the blood that appears in the second sticks to our characters à la Tarantino".

"And then we say + bloody mess + (+ bloody mess + if you translate word for word, but really used as + a hell of a mess + in everyday language)", Jinte laughs.

Another expression that corresponds to the current period.

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