This Monday is back to the bands as Just Mustard has released their second album and if their goal was improvement, then they should considered themselves in the clear. Improvement doesn’t mean their debut album Wednesday had anything wrong with it. Quite the opposite in fact. When Just Mustard introduced themselves to the world in 2018, it was evident they were onto something. There was something aesthetically unique about Wednesday that seemed to be without prior influence. Their sophomore outing Heart Under steers them onwards to a fresh continuation, aided by what sounds like an upgrade in the production department.
Heart Under is actually an artistically pleasing nightmare
The Irish band takes only forty-five minutes to deliver ten tracks, striking a faint and haunting tone that leaves little to be desired apart from perhaps a third album in the future. There is something distant about the band’s sound and this is a consistent factor that plays out through all of the new songs. In a way, Heart Under is actually an artistically pleasing nightmare. There’s a slight darkness about the entire album, yet this is exactly the thing which makes it enjoyable to engage with. It’s chaotic and distortive nature is almost addicting in that as hard as it can be to experience, there’s just no turning it off once the first track kicks off. This isn’t an easy thing to accomplish nor is it ideal either.
There are some moments where it’s difficult to get a sense of where the band is trying to fit within the rock genre. The instrumentals are loud and at times disorderly as though they’d like to be ‘metal’, yet the vocals that accompany them are distinct, soft, and hypnotizing which draws the band back from getting too heavy. Lead singer Katie Bell could nearly take part as any band’s vocalist in either pop, rock, or alternative. However, something about the way she sings along with Just Mustard’s tumultuous guitars and frantic drums just works. Lyrically the band are not showing themselves as poets or profound intellectuals, but their songs definitely are not standard and their music seems to be more about sound and style anyway. Their style, is sort of apprehensive. Each song is overwrought and evokes a feeling of discomfort that surprisingly still feels like a positive. They are not afraid to be who they are instead of what the listener may want to them to be in the moment. Just Mustard’s level of self-expression in Heart Under can only be described as fearless.
Rock fanatics are sure to give this a chance, but others won’t be so easy to convince. Bands like this have trouble for a reason, and it’s mainly due to their lack of interest in catering to casual music fans. On the contrary however, it’s this that makes Just Mustard a necessary oddity. Bands like Just Mustard must exist, as their presence in the music world makes things interesting. Eventually they will find their market and perhaps even expand it as long as they continue to deliver down the road.
