Album reviews: Impressive offerings from Just Mustard and Angel Olsen
Just Mustard and Angel Olsen have just released new albums.
- Just Mustard
- Heart Under
- ★★★★☆
Just Mustard’s 2018 debut, Wednesday, was a charming sleeper hit where the Dundalk group applied a Gen Z makeover to the fuzzbox sensibility of forbears such as My Bloody Valentine and Ride. But they’ve switched things up for the follow-up, which arrives on the heels of the five-piece touring the US as support to Fontaines DC.
Heart Under is a grungier, weirder and compelling upgrading of Wednesday – a throbbingly unhinged noise rock adventure where a surprise seems to lurk around ever corner. Grinding riffs give away to floaty singing by Katie Ball on the single Still while on Blue Chalk a prowling guitar provides an ominous backdrop to Ball’s vocal.
They do occasionally play it straight. Mirrors, for instance, is a twinkling indie gem – proof that, whatever variety of alternative rock they explore, Just Mustard have become a band for all seasons and one of the most exciting new(ish) voices in Irish music.
Just Mustard's upcoming gigs include Cyprus Avenue, Cork, on June 8
- Angel Olsen
- Big Time
- ★★★★☆
Olsen has been knocking on the doors of the mainstream for several years now. The irony is that the record that may finally usher her into the spotlight is bound up in loss and tragedy. Olsen had a difficult pandemic, falling sick around the time of the Black Lives Matter protests (though not to Coronavirus) and losing her elderly adoptive parents within the space of two months in 2021.
She has poured that grief into a project that combines open-veined songwriting with conventional old timey country-rock trappings. Proudly retro, Big Time recalls Emmylou Harris and Johnny Cash – and even Dolly Parton.
That’s quite a switch up from the raw, gritty textures of her previous albums, which blended country influences with an appealingly ragged-at-the-edges outsider quality.
But the majesty of songs such as Ghost On and All The Flowers is rooted in the tension between the glossy production and the unbearable angst beneath. There is every chance of this absorbing mix placing Olsen in front of a far larger audience.
