It’s wild to think how far Just Mustard have come since Wednesday first shook my world back in 2018. I still remember writing about that debut and feeling like someone had opened a trapdoor under shoegaze. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard. Then Heart Under arrived and dragged us further into the dark. Now that was a record that pulsed with pressure, built walls of sound so thick they felt physical. I was lucky enough to catch them live on that tour and it was one of these most intense gigs experiences I’ve ever had. An unforgettable experience.
Fast forward to when the single ‘Pollyanna’ appeared earlier this year, I suspected something was shifting. It sounded colder, sharper, but there was light seeping through the cracks. And now here we are with We Were Just Here, their third album where that very glimmer of light becomes the main event.
I’ll put my hand up here and say I’ve got skin in this one. I’ll be seeing them live twice next year. Once in Glasgow and again when they share a bill with The Cure, Mogwai and Slowdive in Edinburgh. Just the thought of those songs reverberating through a dark venue sends a shiver up the spine. They’ve always been a band I feel in my chest as much as my head, so I’m hoping this new album only amplifies that connection.
As I type this, I am still awaiting my vinyl copy so rather than drop the needle……let’s hit play.
The opening track ‘Pollyanna’ still hits like a tidal wave. Its mechanical heartbeat and gleaming guitar work feel like the band have dismantled their machinery just to rebuild it with cleaner lines. Katie Ball’s voice is eerily calm, now floating more above the vortex rather than fighting it. What gets me every time is the restraint, just that steady pulse and a kind of dead-eyed beauty. It sets the tone perfectly: this album isn’t just about walls of noise anymore; it’s about letting the light in to touch the edges of the dark.
Up next ‘Endless Deathless’ walks straight into that glow but twists it with menace. The rhythm lurches, the bass moves like a shadow under a flickering streetlight, and Ball’s delivery sounds almost detached, like she’s narrating a fever dream. The guitars soar in the choruses with that trademark industrial sheen, now polished until it glimmers. You can feel the band’s confidence here and it’s hypnotic. There’s a perverse joy in how they make something so heavy feel so weightless.
Then comes ‘Silver’, and everything softens. The guitars pulse gently like a heartbeat as Ball and David Noonan trade vocal lines. Their voices are perfectly matched by this point and as a result it’s one of their most direct songs to date. Melodic, yet still steeped in that strange, metallic sheen that defines their world.
‘Dreamer’ captures exactly what its title promises. It moves like a slow-motion dance in an empty hall, the vocals rising higher in the mix than ever before. There’s something heartbreakingly human about it, a reminder that Just Mustard have always been searching for beauty inside chaos. It’s the drums that really caught my ear on this one, absolutely stunning performance start to finish.
The title track ‘We Were Just Here’ is the album’s centrepiece. It takes all their old motifs, warped guitars, industrial percussion, that subterranean bass and refracts them through colour and melody. There’s an almost euphoric dancefloor quality buried inside its loops and churns. This is perhaps the song I’m most looking forward to hearing live. I’m a sucker for songs with dips and drops.
‘Somewhere’ continues in that vein buy slows the pace somewhat. The guitar lines are stretched and ghostly, like you’re hearing them at a distance. The drums tap like distant machinery throwing the odd curveball at you here and there. This is Just Mustard at their most minimal, if minimal is even in their vocabulary. I love this route they are exploring, not losing any of the intensity of those other worldly guitars but just turning everything else up.
Next ‘Dandelion’ feels like a new beginning more than anything so far. There’s a sense of motion, of something blooming and burning at the same time. Bell’s voice turns weightless, nearly translucent, as the rhythm section keeps things grooving along. It’s deceptively simple and spellbinding. Deceptively because there is a lot going on but the band come together so seamlessly it feels like one organism, one voice throughout.
On ‘That I Might Not See’, they let distortion and volume back in, but it’s sculpted and precise. The drums are almost tribal against the frantic tremolo of the guitars. If this was on Heart Under, I could imagine the production being icy and jagged. Here though, a warmth envelopes it all, especially in the headphones. That’s just another tweak the band have made to elevate this song, this album and move their sound forward.
‘The Steps’ sounds like the band wandering through their own memories. Its as sparse as it comes, just voice and guitar. As you would expect though, the guitar is spectral and almost orchestral giving an almost folk song feel. Bell owns this track stepping in with an absolutely stellar vocal performance. This is a brave move from a band known for large, monumental music. It more than pays off.
The closer ‘Out of Heaven’ is the perfect ending. It feels vast and weightless, all shimmer and ache. The melodies fold around Katie’s voice like soft static, and there’s something deeply human in how she reaches for euphoria while still sounding fragile. That sense of “trying to feel euphoric, but at a cost,” as she’s described it, defines the whole record. It’s both release and reckoning, beauty and fatigue.
We Were Just Here finds Just Mustard stepping fully into their own light. They haven’t abandoned the intensity that made them who they are, they’ve simply redirected it. The noise is very much still there, but it breathes differently now, more open, more alive. It’s an album about transformation, about standing at the edge of something vast and letting it change you. Still disorientating, still fearless, but shimmering with warmth. I was so excited to get a new Just Mustard and they have more than delivered. Is this my favourite album of theirs yet? D’ye know……yes.
We Were Just Here is out now via Partisan Records. You can also grab a copy from the Just Mustard Bandcamp page.
You can follow Just Mustard on social media here…..
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