Just Mustard - We Were Just Here

Partisan

The third outing from Dundalk's sonic sizzlers Just Mustard sees the band shake the ethereal-industrial soundscrapes once more. This time, erring more on the side of the ethereal, the dissonance is met with a thickly-sickly-sweet, glossy sheen. 

There's a way, we can be playing. Lost in the whirlwind of a hazey reverie. Held down by the weight of the world; lifted up by the need to transcend. Caustic tones are placated by scattered rhythms like Autumnally-splayed leaves. Tangerine dreams. Sulphuric sands of time. Between the nether; neither here nor there. On "Pollyanna", the lead single of the album, Katie Ball's vocals become one with the wind; Angelic and haunting in the same breath. The drums are reminiscent of Radiohead's "Weird Fished/Arpeggi", albeit, of course, within a different context, energy and dimension. "Silver" is the first we hear from the despondent and quintessential-to-the-world-of-Just-Mustard chimes of David Noonan. His voice is the aching soothe of dreamy, distant despondence. 

We Were Just Here is, in large, more ethereally driven rather than industrially skewed; the softer edges are more prominent - the corners are rouged rather than bloodied. However, as previously stated, a shimmering weight sits beneath the etherealities like a mechanical dreamstate. Like spirit needs the physical form to move through, so do Just Mustard; they are conduits. Beautiful faucets filled with fuzz. Let the dissonance flow forth. Flood the lot with scathing, soaring soundscapes. Drip, drip, drip like an unforgiving flu.

Moody machines weave and bulge like an upset stomach on title track. Everything happens all the time, all around you all the time. Infinitely unfolding. Accordion-like: stress and release; stress and release. Ease and ooze; ease and ooze. The offset seesaw of dysfunctional guitars are a prominent feature of Just Mustard's material. 

"Somewhere" marches into view. The lush chords in the quieter moments of said song feel like loosenings of the tightness in your chest and limbs - room to breathe and space to manoeuvre. A deep breath in service of the soul. Sour pouts remain firmly attached to faces. 

"Dandelion" ticks back-and-forth like a Grandfather clock - rimshots play within cavernous space - while the most drum-centric track on WWJH takes the shape of "That I Might Not See". Lead-laced raindrops spin round-and-round akin to bombs falling in line on earth. There are elements of Just Mustard's hazier moments that are reminiscent of Boards of Canada's 2002 Geogaddi project. Foggy fields of days gone by begin to simmer and saunter. Things that were put away neat and tidy come undone for one last jaunt. 

Penultimate piece "The Steps" may just be the most sombre that Just Mustard have been to date. 

'I can not free

What’s sinking me

For only fields

No roads from here.'

"Out of Heaven" sees out We Were Just Here. The vocal partnership of Ball and Noonan is dropdead gorgeous; I wish they would use it more often, however it may be as good as it is on this record because of its rarity. 

Is this falling out of Heaven?