A quick search of songs that in some way feature a reference to the Belgian city of Antwerp brings up more results than you’d maybe think; American downbeat rockers Pavement namecheck it in 1994’s Brink Of The Clouds, while downtempo eccentrics Lemon Jelly also drop the handle on 2002’s Ramblin’ Man.
It’s probably more authentic for Balthazar to join that fraternity given that they’re based in Ghent, a town roughly seventy clicks to the south west of what is, as most of us will probably already know, the place widely accepted as the diamond capital of the world.
On Leaving Antwerp, Balthazar are in unsurprisingly reflective state of mind, but the musical recipe is the same as it for the rest of Sand; an urbane mix of blue-eyed soul, stripped back funk and leisurely R&B all executed with a certain swing, in this case right down the to the jazzy, nonchalant sax solo.
Gathered as usual around the creative nucleus of Maarten Devoldere and Jinte Deprez, the band’s fifth album determinedly carries on with the shift from elegant indie pop to the yacht-ish rock of their last album, 2018’s Fever.
Indeed, such was the duo’s enthusiasm once having toured that material, they resolved to get straight back into the studio, only to be thrown out of process due to lockdowns and all the paraphernalia that went with them.
Not that this stymied them particularly, Develdore explaining: ‘We did a lot of things that we haven’t done previously – we’ve never used as many drum samples, or bass synths before,’, whilst Deprez saw things more pragmatically: ‘You just work with what you’ve got.’
If it’s obvious that they’re pushing against the current tide of minimalism and keeping things as abstract as possible, this doesn’t mean that the lounge gecko cap doesn’t still fit them pretty well.
On Losers, they manage to find some positivity from the situation, the clipped disco backing the refrain, ‘It feels like we are losers on the verge of something great’, while On A Roll is Low Countries cool at its laid back cutest, the words jarring slightly in dealing with being trapped in a mind which can’t break free of its own self-imposed chains.
This dichotomy – the sugary top side, a darker underbelly – is the band’s essence. On opener Moment they stalk through some vaguely tribal sounding rhythms whilst plain simple yearning seems to be the right course of action: ‘I’m not in a hurry to stop living this illusion/And I don’t even wanna know how it’s feeding my confusion’.
This contrarianism even extends to what is normally one of the most reliable transactions in pop: the breakup song. Here, on You Won’t Come Around, instead of regret we jam like Hall & Oates with a guilt complex at the realization that the new grass of replacement beds isn’t always greener.
The late-night vibe is all-pervasive, reaching a smudged apex on the piano and double-bass led closer Powerless, the chanted chorus the sort of thing you might expect an ensemble cast to always leave ‘em wanting more with off Broadway, while the Tropicalia of Hourglass is as urgent and attention demanding as its time as a mortal foe story unravels to be.
For Balthazar, leaving is such sweet sorrow, even somewhere like Antwerp. Instead, they just want to stay and kick off their shoes with you, even if, as with Sand, what happens next might not be exactly what you expect.
Just don’t mention the diamonds.
