Just Mustard have always existed slightly out of reach — a band whose sound felt like it was coming from the room next door, or from behind a wall of fog. On We Were Just Here, they step forward without abandoning that sense of mystery. The noise still shimmers, the edges still fray, but the mood is looser, warmer, and almost euphoric.

Produced by the band and mixed by David Wrench (Frank Ocean, FKA Twigs), We Were Just Here opens up their world. Where 2022’s Heart Under moved through grief and longing, this record reaches outward, toward touch, movement, and shared experience. It’s a shift that feels earned. After years spent touring with The Cure, Depeche Mode, and Fontaines D.C., Just Mustard sound ready to be in the same room as their audience.

The title track captures that perfectly: a trance-like pulse rising under Katie Ball’s spectral vocal, guitars bending into jagged shapes before dissolving into light. “Pollyanna” and “Endless Deathless” continue the push toward something more physical, songs that hum with low-end pressure but also with life. The band’s trademark unease is still there, but this time it sweats.

Even in its darker corners, We Were Just Here feels intent on connection. “That I Might Not See” aches with uncertainty; “Somewhere” flickers between comfort and disquiet. Throughout, the band’s sonic palette remains both industrial and intimate, noise sculpted into something human.

If Heart Under was about distance, We Were Just Here is about the urge to close it. Just Mustard haven’t softened their sound so much as expanded its reach. They’re still working in tension, between cold surfaces and warm bodies, between anxiety and release, but there’s a new kind of glow inside the machinery.

We Were Just Here is the sound of Just Mustard finding communion in the dark. Not an escape from it, but a way to move through it together, under the same flickering light.