Dundalk, Ireland 5-piece Just Mustard have detailed their anticipated sophomore album - Heart Under - out 27 May via Partisan Records (their first with the label). To coincide with the announcement, they have shared the album’s lead single and accompanying mesmerizing music video, directed by Balan Evans.
Just Mustard will tour throughout 2022, including their first-ever NYC headline show on 9 March at Brooklyn’s Union Pool, a run of shows at SXSW, and finally supporting Fontaines D.C. on their upcoming European and North American tour dates. The band will subsequently head out for headline shows all over the UK and Europe in the autumn. Full routing below, more dates to follow. Additionally, Just Mustard will play a live session for KEXP in Seattle on 13 March which will air live and appear online shortly after.
‘Still’ drives the band’s already remarkable intensity into innovative new territory, resulting in a sound not easily categorized by genre or era - a guitar song with guitars that don’t sound like guitars, a song that stretches traditional frameworks to make something thrillingly unique. Vocalist Katie Ball elaborates, “‘Still’ is one of the earliest songs we worked on for the album and has gone through several formations. We wanted to write a song that people can dance to. Instrumentally and lyrically it surrenders itself to other emotions expressed on the album, playing with repetition, tension and release.”
Listen to ‘Still’ HERE
Watch the ‘Still’ video HERE
Pre-order Heart Under HERE
Heart Under was primarily recorded at Attica Studios in Donegal, with additional recording and post-production then completed at home. The album was produced by the band and mixed by David Wrench, whose previous collaborators include Frank Ocean, Let’s Eat Grandma, Jamie xx, FKA twigs and beyond. The title, Heart Under, comes from the lyric “the heart under its foot” from album track ‘Sore,’ and throughout recording the band discussed the idea of wanting the listener to feel like they’re on a train going through a tunnel. “This album felt very blue to us,” Ball explains. “There was sadness and sorrow in the album, and it felt like being underwater and under something very heavy. We let that influence the music, but it wasn’t a decision – it just naturally happened that way.”
Behind Ball’s transfixing vocals, guitarists David Noonan and Mete Kalyoncuoglu make their six-strings shriek and wail, sounding like everything from whirring machinery to horror movie monsters. Dark, halfway techno-sounding beats are juxtaposed with their watery, swelling guitar chords that add a dreamy texture to the record alongside its more aggressive, industrial tones. Drummer Shane Maguire uses the rim of his drums almost as much as the skins, providing a clattering, metallic backbeat. Meanwhile bassist Rob Clarke’s inventive, nodding basslines create a sound that feels like an anchor at the bottom of the sea, adding extra emotional weight to each song.
Heart Under follows Just Mustard’s 2018 debut Wednesday which earned acclaim at home and abroad – most notably capturing a Choice Music Prize nomination for Irish Album of the Year. Fader praised the band’s “intense and rich shoegaze-meets-noise sound,” NME called the album “a two-toned masterpiece,” the Irish Independent described it as “a swirling atmosphere-heavy thrill-ride,” and Stereogum said “Just Mustard are pushing the envelope when it comes to emotive sonics...simultaneously dismantling and progressive.” Their 2019 double A-side ‘Frank/October’ earned spotlights from KEXP as a ‘Song Of The Day’ and from BBC Radio 1 as ‘Tune Of The Week’.
The band have performed at Primavera, End Of The Road and were also handpicked by Robert Smith to support The Cure at Dublin’s Malahide Castle.
See Just Mustard live in 2022:
Sept 11 - Ramsgate, Kent, England - Ramsgate Music Hall
Sept 13 - London, England - Village Underground
Sept 14 - Bristol, England - The Exchange
Sept 15 - Brighton, England - Patterns
Sep 16 - Southampton, England - The Loft
Sept 17 - Norwich, England - Voodoo Daddys
Sept 20 - Liverpool, England - Jimmy’s
Sept 21 - Nottingham, England - The Bodega Social Club
Sept 22 - Manchester, England - Band On The Wall
Sept 23 - Glasgow, Scotland - Broadcast
Sept 25 - Leeds, England - Brudenell Social Club
