Just Mustard – 7th Level Music

Review: Just Mustard – We Were Just Here

Just Mustard‘s third album, We Were Just Here, opens with squalling guitar that sounds like an alarm that has a battery that’s slowly going dead. The band was looking for hope on the album, and I can’t help but think that its title refers to the deja vu (and dread) we’re all feeling right now in the political atmosphere.

“Pollyanna” is, in fact, named after a character who was eternally optimistic, and Katie Ball‘s vocals have a lovely bounce to them while her bandmates practically summon a UFO from outside our orbit. “Endless Deathless” roars off like a spacecraft designed in an Irish farmhouse going to meet that UFO and ask anyone inside how we can fix this place. It’s a stunner that will immediately go onto your cardio playlist. Guitarist David Noonan joins Ball on vocals for “Silver” – a song that bounces back and forth not only between their microphones, but also between Noonan’s guitar Mete Kalyoncuoglu‘s.

Ball’s vocals on “Dreamer” echo all around you, keeping on the theme of euphoria (and the healthy search for it – “I don’t wanna go where I can’t feel a thing.”) prominent across the record. The title track is another stunner with guitars roaring everywhere. “Somewhere” has Robert Hodgers-Clarke on bass and Shane Maguire on drums creating a neat, smoky, and slightly menacing atmosphere as the guitars swell and fall like waves.

“Dandelion” seems to be about perseverance, as dandelions can and do grow practically anywhere and Ball compares herself to one as she hopes she won’t be overlooked by a potential lover. “That I Might Not See” is a song about being so euphoric you’re not sure if what you’re experiencing is real or not. “The Steps” has Ball following her lover across unexplored territory, and the closer, “Out of Heaven,” has the band coming back down to Earth…but now the Earth has changed.

That’s what they hope for all of us: That the planet will change after we all take the time to have an out-of-body experience or two. Small actions create large changes. We don’t need to return to a place we’ve already been. That moment, that place, is gone and has been for a long while. Here is now. Just Mustard is now.

Keep your mind open.

[You were just here? The subscription box is just over there.]

[Thanks to Jaycee at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Just Mustard announce big tour for 2026.

Just Mustard is Katie Ball, David Noonan, Mete Kalyoncuoğlu, Rob Clarke, and Shane Maguire. WE WERE JUST HERE signals a pivotal moment for the band. While Just Mustard’s signature elements are still intact —warped guitars, twisted sound design drawing from the luminary world of Aphex Twin, and cavernous low ends—this time, it’s all been channeled into a warmer and more anthemic path. The strange and distinct universe the band creates on WE WERE JUST HERE is reinforced with haunting interludes of speech and noise, snippets of voice memos, and elements from various demos. Whereas Heart Under explored themes of grief and longing, the songs here draw from a wide spectrum of emotion and feeling, with characters searching for ecstasy, holding onto love, and grasping for the rush of feeling alive.

Pre-order WE WERE JUST HERE

Watch the Video for “ENDLESS DEATHLESS”

Watch the Video for “WE WERE JUST HERE”

Watch the Video for “POLLYANNA”

Just Mustard Tour Dates

Wed. Apr. 8 – Stockholm, SE @ Debaser
Thu. Apr. 9 – Oslo, NO @ John Dee
Sat. Apr. 11 – Copenhagen, DK @ Loppen
Sun. Apr. 12 – Hamburg, DE @ Nochtspeicher
Mon. Apr. 13 – Cologne, DE @ Helios 37
Wed. Apr. 15 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
Thu. Apr. 16 – Brussels, BE @ Botanique
Fri. Apr. 17 – Paris, FR @ Le Trabendo
Sun. Apr. 19 – Norwich, GB @ The Waterfront
Mon. Apr. 20 – Birmingham, GB @ The Castle & Falcon
Tue. Apr. 21 – Newcastle, GB @ The Grove
Thu. Apr. 23 – Glasgow, GB @ Glasgow School of Art
Fri. Apr. 24 – Leeds, GB @ Brudenell Social Club
Sat. Apr. 25 – Manchester, GB @ Gorilla
Mon. Apr. 27 – Bristol, GB @ Thekla
Tue. Apr. 28 – Brighton, GB @ CHALK
Wed. Apr. 29 – London, GB @ Electric Brixton
Fri. May 1 – Dublin, IE @ Olympia Theatre
Fri. May 8 – Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern
Sat. May 9 – Vancouver, BC @ Fox Cabaret
Sun. May 10 – Portland, OR @ Polaris Hall
Tue. May 12 – San Francisco, CA @ Cafe Du Nord
Thu. May 14 – Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room
Sat. May 16 – West Hollywood , CA @ Troubadour
Sun. May 17 – Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar – Music Hall
Tue. May 19 – Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge
Thu. May 21 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
Sat. May 23 – Toronto, ON @ The Garrison
Sun. May 24 – Montréal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz PDB
Tue. May 26 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
Fri. May 29 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
Sat. May 30 – Washington, DC @ Songbyrd Music House
Fri. June 26 – Dublin, IE @ Marlay Park *
Sun. June 28 – Belfast, IE @ Belsonic ^
Sun. Aug. 23 – Edinburgh, SF @ Royal Highland Showgrounds, Edinburgh Summer Sessions #

* with The Cure & Stella and the Dreaming
^ with The Cure & The Twilight Sad
# with The Cure, Slowdive, & Mogwai

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe before you go.]

[Thanks to Jaycee at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Just Mustard’s release powerful new single – “Endless Deathless.”

Ireland’s Just Mustard release “ENDLESS DEATHLESS,” the third single/video from their new album, WE WERE JUST HERE, out October 24th via Partisan Records. “ENDLESS DEATHLESS” arrives on the heels of a sold out September tour and release of the album’s title track, “WE WERE JUST HERE,” which “takes Just Mustard’s minimalist noise rock into a dreamier, goth-like arena” (Consequence). One of the most explosive tracks on the album, “ENDLESS DEATHLESS” captures the band at their most urgent and cathartic. It’s immediate and visceral, built on a foundation of warped guitar textures, clattering percussion, and thudding sub-bass. Katie Ball’s vocals rise above the chaos; a break in the clouds cutting through the noise. It’s a high point of the record’s embrace of physicality and directness, designed to hit with the impact of a packed club running at full tilt. The song’s accompanying video was directed by band member David Noonan.

Watch the Video for “ENDLESS DEATHLESS”

Just Mustard is Katie Ball, David Noonan, Mete Kalyoncuoğlu, Rob Clarke, and Shane Maguire. WE WERE JUST HERE was recorded at Black Mountain studio just outside of the band’s hometown, produced by Noonan and the band, and mixed by David Wrench (Frank Ocean, FKA twigs). The strange and distinct universe the band creates on record is reinforced with haunting interludes of speech and noise, snippets of voice memos, and elements from various demos. While their approach to composition had previously been inspired by their love of electronic music, starting with instrumental loops and textures and later weaving vocal ideas around them, the band made a conscious decision to reverse engineer this process on WE WERE JUST HERE. This meant adopting a more traditional method, looking to the swirling rock and dynamic song structures of Nirvana and My Bloody Valentine and striving for big, bold, fully encompassing songs.

“The vocal structure was the most important thing,” Noonan comments. With choruses bursting with melody and brightness, Ball’s vocals rise higher in the mix throughout the album. Her lyrics can be ingested as a conflicted and toxic grasp at positivity, or a cathartic breakthrough into bliss. “I was trying to write more optimistically, and feeling like a fraud sometimes. I was trying to put myself in places of physical joy to try and get that euphoric feeling,” Ball explains.

WE WERE JUST HERE signals a pivotal moment for the band. Across their first two albums—2018’s Wednesday and their 2022 Partisan debut Heart Under—the band “rode a wave of noise to the front of the shoegaze pack, breaking from the distorted yearning of the genre’s softer acolytes” (Pitchfork). While Just Mustard’s signature elements are still intact on WE WERE JUST HERE, it’s all been channeled into a warmer and more anthemic path. For Heart Under, a core concept of the album was to make listeners feel like they were traveling through a tunnel. With WE WERE JUST HERE, they explode out into the blinding light.

Pre-order WE WERE JUST HERE

Watch the Video for “WE WERE JUST HERE”

Watch the Video for “POLLYANNA”

Just Mustard Tour Dates
Fri. Oct. 24 – London, UK @ Rough Trade East
Sun. Oct. 26 – Kingston Upon Thames, UK @ The Fighting Cocks
Mon. Oct. 27 – Bristol, UK @ Rough Trade Bristol
Tue. Oct. 28 – Brighton, UK @ Resident Music
Wed. Oct. 29 – Liverpool, UK @ Rough Trade Liverpool
Thu. Oct. 30 – Dublin, IE @ Spindizzy Records
Fri. May 1 – Dublin, IE @ Olympia Theatre
Fri. June 26 – Dublin, IE @ Marlay Park *
Sun. June 28 – Belfast, IE @ Belsonic ^
Sun. Aug. 23 – Edinburgh, SF @ Royal Highland Showgrounds, Edinburgh Summer Sessions #

* with The Cure & Stella and the Dreaming
^ with The Cure & The Twilight Sad
# with The Cure, Slowdive, & Mogwai

Keep your mind open.

[Just subscribe.]

[Thanks to Jaycee at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Just Mustard release new single, “Pollyanna,” and new tour dates.

Ireland’s Just Mustard return with a new single/video, “POLLYANNA,” via Partisan, and announce an intimate New York show on Tuesday, September 9th at National Sawdust. Following the release of their “thrillingly untraditional” (NME) 2022 breakout, Heart Under, “POLLYANNA” is a luminous and lurching first tease of their highly anticipated third album due later this year. Anchored by the group’s signature sonic disorientation but newly embracing directness and melody, “POLLYANNA” sets the tone for a new era of Just Mustard, one that finds beauty in contradiction, pairing the raw power of noise-rock with a conflicted optimism that’s as disarming as it is cathartic. With warped guitars, submerged beats, and front woman Katie Ball’s dreamlike vocals pushed higher in the mix than ever before, it captures the band at a turning point: reaching for euphoria while wrestling with its emotional cost.

Ball, who directed the video herself, comments: “We shot the video using different CCTV and VHS cameras around our hometown Dundalk trying to have as much fun as possible, the kind of fun that makes you feel sick almost instantly, which suits the themes of the song.”

Watch the Video for “POLLYANNA”

Just Mustard is Katie Ball, David Noonan, Mete Kalyon, Rob Clarke, and Shane Maguire. Heart Under earned Just Mustard widespread acclaim, with the band racking up rave reviews from NME, The Telegraph, Pitchfork, DIY, The Independent, and plenty more. Their music has been championed by BBC 6 Music, BBC Radio 1, KEXP, as well as The Cure, Depeche Mode and Fontaines D.C., all of whom they’ve supported on tour.

Following a string of festival dates, including Seisiún Festival in Boston, the band will return to New York City and then head to the UK/EU for select underplays in London, Paris and Berlin. A full list of dates is below.

Just Mustard Tour Dates
(New Dates in Bold)
Sat. Aug. 16 – Brecon Beacons, UK @ Green Man Festival
Sat. Aug. 30 – Stradbally, IE @ Electric Picnic
Sat. Sept. 6 – Sun. Sept. 7 – Boston, MA @ Seisiún Festival
Tue. Sept. 9 – Brooklyn, NY @ National Sawdust
Fri. Sept. 19 – Hamburg, DE @ Reeperbahn Festival
Mon. Sept. 22 – Berlin, DE @ Privatclub
Wed. Sept. 24 – Paris, FR @ Point Empemere
Thu. Sept. 25 – London, UK @ Hoxton Hall

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Jaycee and Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR!]