W.O.W.A

The record has been a work in progress for some time, with Ghinzu having written almost 90 fully fledged ideas for their new album, before whittling this down to the final tracklisting. “We had all these hard drives everywhere,” recalls Ghinzu frontman John Descamps. “We wanted to gather 10 tracks together to really represent all those years of condensed work.”

The results take Ghinzu back to basics, before blasting them into uncharted territories. Their formative influences - the energy and expression of Queen; the raucous grunge noise of Nirvana and The Melvins – remain, alongside their passion for visual art. Name-checking the painters Gerhard Richter and Francis Bacon as points of inspiration, they stepped back from their perfectionist leanings to embrace music at its most raw and powerful.

Travelling to Los Angeles studio Hillside Manor, Ghinzu worked alongside the hugely experienced figure of Dave Sardy on this record, a crucial individual who became an additional member of the band.

The results speak for themselves. When Other Worlds Await is a terrific record, laced with raw pulsions and engineered tensions. The distillation of a decade’s worth of ideas, it finds Ghinzu revelling in creative maturity.