Genre purists will be pleased to harken back to the classical definition of shoegaze with Wednesday, the new offering from Dundalk, Ireland band Just Mustard.
Breaking rank with the watered down post pop-punk Britpop worship that masquerades as shoegaze, Wednesday would be more at home played next to Nowhere than they would Hyperview.
Digging into this ambitious comparison, where forbearers of the genre, Ride, offer Technicolor meanderings, Just Mustard answers with a bleaker pallet. The guitars are less bright and plinking, however still managing to be just as symphonic and expansive. Wednesday puts forth a darker tone, crystalline, atmospheric, and measured.
There are touches of post-punk bass lines, throbbing under softly industrial tones that build and burst like the phosphines behind your eyelids. There is a complex ebb and flow, at times simmering almost into minimalism on the third track, "Tennis." At other times, the flow is more like a bent and twisted dream girl group from the 1960s, Lynchian in the way that it can turn something sparkling into something visceral, just a beat away from unsettling and the same distance away from euphoric.
This release is immersive and engaging, and the flawless production allows the listener to fully settle in to the experience while never really allowing them to get comfortable.
Get It
- Bandcamp (Vinyl, mp3)
Tagged: just mustard
