_{Text: Paul van der Zalm}

Let’s pretend that nothing has changed, that we can just go to concerts and festivals and see bands. And if we imagine that one of those bands is Waltzburg, then this group of friends from Nijmegen, the Netherlands fantasises that they are performing for us. The five musicians know how to convey this feeling in the five new songs on their EP ‘Let’s All Pretend’.

The first song immediately sounds familiar and has those typical Waltzburg characteristics: the open and clear production, the somewhat measured vocals of Menno Krivokutya with second voice of Nicole Jansen and the playful arrangements. The title ‘Cleo’ could very well be a reference to the muse of the same name from Greek mythology.

In the next three tracks, however, you can clearly hear that the band has not been idle for the past year and has grown even closer: the production is richer, the harmonies are closer and the songs are very catchy. This is evident first of all in ‘Commute’, where the title of the EP is derived from and which is about the doubts of a trip to London. Then the pace picks up in ‘Sure Shine’ where we hear “at least I do not pretend” again. Highlight is the rightly chosen single ‘Inbetween’, a very catchy song with a surprising corona clip. According to Krivokutya, the lyrics of this song are about “feeling second best, feeling like a fraud in life, no matter how right or wrong that feeling is.” At least the latter applies to this track. Closing track ‘The Land’ is of a slightly different order. This song sounds a bit more dark and we only hear the singer here against the backdrop of a long held drone and a recurring motif. All in all, this release is a worthy successor of the debut album ‘Cut The Wire’ with single ‘Gotor’.