Just Mustard - 'WE WERE JUST HERE'
Dundalk shoegazers Just Mustard announce their next album alongside the release of their latest single, album title track WE WERE JUST HERE.
The Ireland-based five-piece have been paving themselves a brilliantly lit path to the top since the release of their debut album, Wednesday, in 2018 and Heart Under in 2022. A fusion of eerie, haunting vocals, warped guitars and distorted noise forms Just Mustard’s unique sound - a sound that the band have continued to hone and push through creative boundaries across their previous work. Those core elements that make Just Mustard are all present within the band’s latest track, from Katie Ball’s echoing vocals to the swampy guitars and twisting sound design, yet WE WERE JUST HERE is fundamentally quite different. Unlike the heavy, grief-stricken sounds of Heart Under, there is an almost distinct lightness to the band’s newest single.
WE WERE JUST HERE gives us a sneak peek into what will come with Just Mustard’s next album, which is due out on the 24th of October. Compared to the eerie noise of Wednesday and the dark, aching sounds of Heart Under, WE WERE JUST HERE is set to be an album covering a wide range of deep emotions and feelings, “searching for ecstasy, holding onto love, and grasping for the rush of feeling alive.” The title track certainly seems to fit that bill.
The single itself sounds euphoric, ethereal. There is a delicacy to the piece which is buried within the wailing guitars, pulsating synths and industrial noise. It has a dreamier, more pop-esque sound compared to Just Mustard’s earlier works, and it is very much a track that cements itself within one’s brain, under one’s skin. It’s somewhat hypnotic; the jagged sound of the guitars will have you in a trance, while Ball’s vocals continue to haunt you long after the song has come to an end.
WE WERE JUST HERE sounds like what it feels like to fall in love with a stranger in an underground nightclub, sweaty walls and vibrating floors, locking eyes with a person through a red haze. It sounds like running through a city late at night, empty roads, streetlights paving the way, no set destination, no definite end, just chasing a high.
If the title track is anything to go by, and the release of single POLLYANNA before that, then WE WERE JUST HERE could potentially be Just Mustard’s best album yet.
Words by Angela English
