Ghinzu treat creativity like a slow act of distillation. It’s been 17 years since their last album, but it definitely matches expectation – ‘When Other Worlds Await’ might well be their masterpiece, a taut, vibrant, emotionally crushing feast of ideas, packed with incisive detail. “For us,” notes the band’s John Descamps, we considered creativity as a paradox. You inspire, then you expire. It’s the process of being alive. It’s raw and violent but has to be sophisticated and emotional at the same time. Some lines were predicted others were accidents.

The band formed at the dawn of the Millennium, with John Descamps joined by Mika Hasson on bass, Greg Remy on guitar, Jean Waterlot on guitar / keys, and Antoin Michel on drums. Moulding indie rock forms into their artful vision, Ghinzu found their niche on debut album ‘Electronic Jacuzzi’, before earning huge acclaim on 2004 record ‘Blow’ and breakout moment ‘Mirror Mirror’ (2009). The years since then haven’t been wasted – working out of sight, below the waterline, Ghinzu wrote almost 90 fully fledged ideas for their new album, before whittling this down to the final tracklisting. “We had all these hard drives everywhere,” John recalls. “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.

During the making of the record, Ghinzu were invited to play a special birthday party for an audience of friends and family. Their first show in some time, they found that instead of becoming looser, they’d actually become tighter – bonded by the experience of endless studio sessions. “The feedback was incredible,” John beams. “People went completely crazy. When we saw that reaction we thought: OK, this is the moment. We wanted to take the full energy of our live shows, and see how we could translate that into an album.”

Sessions took place at a multitude of studios. Ghinzu worked in their native Belgium and across the Atlantic in New York; they secluded themselves in the countryside, and worked at studios overlooking the sea. “Our plan was to drift away, creating ‘evolutive songs’ that could change from one week to another, or simply disappear to maybe reappear. Doubts have less room within such space, as there is nothing to finish. What is left are the survivors of that period, the wild ones who got captured.”

From first to last, these are stories built by older musicians, people with experience and maturity. “It’s about telling very specific stories in a way that is universal” he says. There’s an almost confrontational aspect with regards to age. We’re developing an intergenerational feel in bringing these stories out of specific narratives and pushing them into different spaces.”

Epic lead single ‘Out Of Control’ erupts like a missile, testimony to the tattered legacy of 90s alt rock – music of their adolescent emancipation – and their urgent need to start anew.

“The idea was to contextualise a straight-forward rock song into something a little more thought-provoking. But it’s also a pretty simple song, at heart.”

It's music rich in character, and completely distinct. “It has to be something we’ve made with our hands,” he says. “The experts we are – as sound engineers, as creative people – it’s about making our own instrument, something that channels the personality of the musician.”

‘Snow White’ is a triptych about addiction, using three interwoven stories. “The first tackles addiction to computer screens and social media. The second story contrasts this with drug addiction. And the third focusses on Snow White – you’re poisoned with an apple and wake up with love. But it’s more about flashes, just an image in your head. The three of them play together in one song.”

A song that revels in creative freedom, ‘Snow White’ refuses to sit in one place. “Indie rock, by definition, involves manipulating references. And that means you can take folk, you can take punk, and you can take electronic, and everything comes together through a type of raw freedom. And I think this is the music we do.”

‘Forever’ is a three-part story about love and loss, told from a fresh angle. “The first part is the excitement of discovery, and meeting someone. The second part is when you realise it might not last forever, and the last part is the break-up. But you come to realise the ending isn’t a failure.” It is part of natural cycle.

‘Morning Lights’ flips the script, with older musicians depicting the lives of the young. “I’m interested in the pessimistic way some young people view their lives. The idea that they’ve somehow been sacrificed to live in a world that might not work. As you get richer, other people get poorer. It’s a generation living in a kind of decline, almost. People trapped in a loop.”

Finally, the band were ready to mix the record. Travelling to Los Angeles studio Hillside Manor, Ghinzu worked alongside the hugely experienced figure of Dave Sardy, who became an additional member of the band. “The studio is kind of a gold mine,” John reflects. “There’s an enormous amount of microphones, amplifiers, keyboards, guitars all around you. You’re sitting the same room where Oasis and The Rolling Stones recorded. You can feel the history.”

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. “Time is important. It allows you to open your eyes on the different person you’ve become,” John notes. “We question everything a little less. We’re more grounded and don’t over-think it.”