Just Mustard have spoken to NME about how the “mad experience” of being handpicked to tour with The Cure inspired their acclaimed new album, ‘We Were Just Here‘.
The Irish noise-rock five-piece released their third LP on Friday (October 24), hailed by NME as “a blinding effort, full of feeling and perfect for goths twitching to lurk in the shadows of the dancefloor”, likening it to “My Bloody Valentine coming up on a pinger”.
‘We Were Just Here’ also sets the band up for returning to join The Cure as special guests on a number of their huge UK and European outdoor shows next summer, having previously been invited by Robert Smith to support them in South America back in 2023.
“Whenever we played in those stadiums in South America with The Cure, that influenced the new album because they made us want to write more songs for people to dance and sing along to – to have a discernible melodic core,” singer Katie Ball told NME. “It inspired us to want to play songs in those kinds of places, but I don’t see us headlining stadiums any time soon!”
Guitarist David Noonan agreed: “The Cure’s music is so melodic, where every element is a hook. We saw people even singing along to the guitar parts, the basslines, the drums.”
Receiving many of Smith’s legendary “funny as fuck” emails sent in ALL CAPS, Ball said that the frontman was always “quite hands-on and will help out in any way he can”.
Noonan continued: “What’s crazy and inspiring is just how much he’s involved in the whole production. He runs the show and it’s just out of love for The Cure. Everyone is coming from a good place. Also, for us to get to watch The Cure and watch Cure fans watch The Cure is just a mad experience. It can be overwhelming.
“We were watching them in Brazil and had to walk through a crowd of 60,000 fans to leave the stadium. To see all these people losing their minds will always stick with me.”
The new album follows on 2018 debut ‘Wednesday’ and 2022’s ‘Heart Under’, with what the band described as a more “upbeat and light” sound and character.
“From playing gigs, we wanted to play more upbeat music than was more danceable and more direct,” Ball explained. “Also, I started to feel like I was a miserable person to be around. I wanted to shed the heavy feelings I was carrying and try to be a more positive person to be around.”
However, Noonan revealed how the band were still far from being a happy-go-lucky pop outfit.
“Sonically, we still have a lot of tension,” he said. “We’re playing with tension a lot, but on this album the tension is pulling in a different direction. Previously the light was getting sucked up by the darkness, but this time we’re trying to go in the opposite direction.
“All of our touring has been quite atmosphere-heavy and internal. We wanted something that made us more excited and made us move.”
That “tension” came from the fact that the course of true joy never runs smooth. “The concept of trying to be happy means that there’s something else there, you know?”, as Ball it, while Noonan noted that “there’s also the pitfall of trying to force happiness. You can chase happiness, but it won’t always work out.”
Elevating that, production comes from the Grammy-nominated David Wrench – famed for his work with fellow outsiders FKA Twigs, The XX, David Byrne and Frank Ocean. Noonan explained how Wrench “added real character” through instrumentation alongside “huge depth” to the vocals.
“The melodies that were there were expanded in a 3D way and given more depth,” he said. Ball added: “With the demos, we were always thinking about the end song. It’s just cool to hand a song over to someone else and just hear things done way better in a way you wouldn’t have thought about.”
In keeping with their past work, ‘We Were Just Here’ boasts Just Mustard’s chops as a guitar band making a noise that sounds quite distant from guitar music – although it’s a much more prominent ingredient this time.
“We started the band by making music that we like with the instruments that knew how to play – and they weren’t the same thing,” said Noonan. “We wanted to make electronic music with guitars. With this album, you feel that we’re letting the guitars through more. Texturally, we got more into the sound of screaming fuzz guitars. We just wanted to amplify that feeling of a rush, like a light moving really fast.”
In a four-star review of ‘We Were Just Here‘, NME concluded: “Album number three from Just Mustard is a more three-dimensional, glorious noise – reaching for euphoria while capturing the rollercoaster of comedowns and the spaces in between; driving melody through the malaise on a psych-driven neon bullet train.
“This time, there’s light on the horizon, a once blackened sky now awash with bleach. It’s a blinding effort, full of feeling and perfect for goths twitching to lurk in the shadows of the dancefloor.”
‘We Were Just Here’ is out now via Partisan. Just Mustard will be hitting the road in 2026. Tickets are on sale now and you can find them here (UK/Ireland) and here (US).
Just Mustard will play:
APRIL 2026
8 – Stockholm – SE, Debaser
9 – Oslo, NO – John Dee
11 – Copenhagen, DK – Loppen
12 – Hamburg, DE – Nochtspeicher
13 – Cologne, DE – Helios 37
15 – Amsterdam, NL – Paradiso
16 – Brussels, BE – Botanique
17 – Paris, FR – Le Trabendo
19 – Norwich, GB – The Waterfront
20 – Birmingham, GB – The Castle & Falcon
21 – Newcastle, GB – The Grove
23 – Glasgow, GB – Glasgow School of Art
24 – Leeds, GB – Brudenell Social Club
25 – Manchester, GB – Gorilla
27 – Bristol, GB – Thekla
28 – Brighton, GB – CHALK
29 – London, GB – Electric Brixton
MAY 2026
1 – Dublin, IE – 3Olympia Theatre
8 – Seattle, WA – Tractor Tavern
9 – Vancouver, BC – Fox Cabaret
10 – Portland, OR – Polaris Hall
12 – San Francisco, CA – Cafe Du Nord
14 – Santa Ana, CA – Constellation Room
16 – West Hollywood, CA – Troubadour
17 – Phoenix, AZ – Valley Bar – Music Hall
19 – Denver, CO – Larimer Lounge
21 – Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle
23 – Toronto, ON – The Garrison
24 – Montréal, QC – Bar Le Ritz PDB
26 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
29 – Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s
30 – Washington, DC – Songbyrd Music House
JUNE 2026
26 – Marlay Park – Dublin, Ireland*
28 – Belsonic – Belfast, Northern Ireland*
*with The Cure
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