BALTHAZAR – RATS (LP ORANGE VINYL)

After spending a few nights in a beautiful old castle near Brussels at the start of 2021 (following lockdown), Belgian art-poppers Balthazar returned from their stay with ‘Sand Castle Tapes’, a documentary and live concert filmed by Heleen Declercqand co produced with HolyShitsessions. ‘Sand Castle Tapes’ features 10 songs from the film; 8 songs reworked from the recent album ‘SAND’ –including the singles ‘Losers’, ‘On A Roll’ and ‘Linger On’, plus two ‘jams’. On 29th April, Balthazar will finally release these special recordings on vinyl for the first time. The band say of the stay: “You only get to fully understand an album when you start playing it together, the relaxed circumstances lead to a whole other way of interpreting the songs than we would have for a live show. It’s refreshing, it’s very human.”