Warhaus (BEL) – Karaoke Moon

The popular Belgian indie pop group Warhaus is a solo project from Maarten Devoldere , the singer, guitarist and pianist frontman of Balthazar, and has become as well known as the original band. And similarly productive too, given that Karaoke Moon, released on 22 November, is the fourth Warhaus record. The group will perform at the House of Music on 28 March 2025 as part of the album release tour. It is their best and most varied album – love once again after heartbreak.

Maarten Devoldere founded Balthazar in 2004. Though they didn't release their debut album until 2010, they rapidly became one of the most popular indie pop rock bands in Belgium before swiftly conquering the continent and then the entire world. They have released five superb albums to date and have tens of millions of listeners. From the very start, however, Devoldere has also nurtured a solo project that finally debuted in 2016 under the name Warhaus, and has since run in parallel with Balthazar. The two projects work together, in fact, for shorter periods. The 2016 Warhaus debut record (We Fucked a Flame into Being) was followed by a second LP (Warhaus) the next year, before two more records (Fever , 2019, Sand , 2021) came after a Balthazar period. The catchy, elegiac groove-filled pop group and sophisticatedly chamber pop solo project are both big in Hungary – Devoldere has performed here with both. In 2022, Devoldere was once again active with Warhaus – Ha Ha Heartbreak was an even stronger album than his previous records. Now, however, its successor is here, and also fits into the upward trend: this is the singer-songwriter's most diverse release to date, led by the soaring single Where The Names Are Real.

Devoldere had a notably active songwriting period after Ha Ha Heartbreak, composing 50 songs and sensing it would be more than enough to make the material for the next Warhaus album. After Devoldere made the demos, however, the producer and fellow Belgian Jasper Maekelberg (known from the band Faces On TV) told him they could do even better. The pair promptly set to rewriting, rearranging and enhancing the basic materials. The result is Karaoke Moon, which was released on 22 November and displays the full maturity of Warhaus's sophisticated, elegantly arranged chamber pop. It also has a different feel, too, with the heart-wrenching moods of the previous record replaced here by the thousand shades of liberation of newfound love. We can look forward to an uplifting concert.