Just Mustard - Heart Under
Although the intention of the album was to feel the experience of driving through a tunnel, Heart Under takes you to so many other places (some of which you’d rather keep locked away). It’s a terrific second album.
Heart Under, the sophomore LP of the Irish quintet Just Mustard, is a raucous, ethereal dreamscape of noise-rock and shoegaze. Although part recorded at Attica Studios in rural Donegal, with additional recording and post-production completed at home, the album sounds like it was recorded in the hollows of a deep cave. Katie Ball’s wistful vocals echo above the whirring, metallic sound from the guitars and muffled effects. It’s a beautiful and haunting record: one that transports you at times to a pre-Raphaelite painting, or to a David Lynch film, or to a sea-wraith emerging from a pristine lake. Like goth-rock bands The Cure or Bauhaus, Just Mustard create an epic gloom sound that doesn’t shy away from the melancholic. Yet the melancholy here is far more hellish with its jarring, more washed-out soundscapes.
The album opens with the track ‘23’ – a fuzzy, distorted track with a sharp, metallic effect on the guitar that sounds like a saw trying to cut through metal. Juxtaposed with Ball’s mystical, maiden-like vocals, it very much sets the scene of the album. The ominous drone and screeching guitars add a weight to the airiness of Ball’s vocals and the track, like the entire album, plays with the elements of air and water. Never quite taking place on land, the vocals float above and soar whilst the rhythm and whirring guitar and basslines act as anchors, pulling the track down into a murky wateriness. The drumming is punchy and raw. It moves the track forwards and keeps the chaos afloat.
The second track ‘Still’ begins with a techno-beat mixed with real drumbeat: a blend of perfect syncopation and tone with the hollower sound of real drums. Both adding an ephemeral quality to the track. The melody sounds like PJ Harvey’s ‘Down by the Water’ but with a Cocteau Twins exotic blurriness. It’s heady and ferocious. The guitars scrape and shudder above the clockwork-like drone. ‘I Am You’ has an eerie, horror-like feel to it. Ball sounds like how you’d imagine one of the twins from The Shining to sound with her bittersweet singsong. ‘Seed’, starts with what sounds like open gunfire and quickly changes to a tumbling noise that’s built up with piercing sounds. The thrash of the guitar has the same painful effect on your ears as chalk on a chalkboard or the feel of teeth grinding. Yet it’s again laced with magical vocals which just about soothe the pain. ‘Blue Chalk’ offers a quick escape from the hellscape from the first few tracks. There’s a calm and slippery backbeat with lush lulls and it feels like you’re seeing everything from a birds-eye-view. By this point of the album, you’re fully entrenched in its opiate haze, not sure whether to stay for the trip or flee.
The latter half of the album takes on a far more tranquil, controlled restraint. ‘Early’ pushes and pulls with the rise and fall of the violin-sounding guitar melody. And it’s the track where Katie Ball sounds almost identical to Elizabeth Fraser with her transfixing, brittle dexterity. ‘Sore’ almost feels like a filler track but is impressive for its pretty, folky vocals. ‘Mirrors’ is an ambient and watery track with standout basslines which create a hypnotic feel. ‘In Shade’ is far grimier. The pounding rhythm stifles and pulsates through your body. The guitar shrieks like a siren and creates a space to the sound, forcing the listener to pick up on the noises that sound like they’re coming from a distance and one’s that sound far too close for comfort. Finally, the closing track ‘Rivers’ brings the listener back to a more idle place to reflect on the isolating tone of the album. It truly is the calm after the storm.
Although the intention of the album was to feel the experience of driving through a tunnel, Heart Under takes you to so many other places (some of which you’d rather keep locked away). It’s a terrific second album. And although Just Mustard have all the makings of a rock band with guitars, bass and drums, they are never just that here. The sounds created really do take you to a whole other dimension.
8/10
