White Flowers / Just Mustard

Patterns, Brighton - 16th September 2022

The Escape Club on Brighton seafront. The last time we were here was to see The Darling Buds back in the late 1980s. Despite attending literally hundreds of gigs in the city over the following thirty years plus our paths never crossed again. OK, it wasn't a live venue for a lot of that time, being used mainly as a club, but it does feel nostalgic walking down the steps to enter into the gloomy basement where obviously time has stood still as nothing appears to have altered, except for the venue's name.

It's a surprise just how cosy the place is. The stage is tiny and the audience right on top of it. It's just like most of the gigs we have been to in our lives, but again it feels somehow like walking into the past. The bar prices bring us quickly back to the present though; the bourbon is shit which is inexcusable when a couple of shots could have virtually bought you an entire bottle of JD.

The other difference is that the venue is no longer just down the road. Patterns is now exactly 301 miles from home and it has taken us five trains and eight hours to get here. We wouldn't have done this for just anybody, but White Flowers and Just Mustard are two of the most promising young bands around and the combination of the two is just too tempting to ignore. We've nabbed an hotel a mere twenty yards away where we were able to shower and cool down after our mammoth journey, so all is good.

White Flowers' Day By Day was one of our favourite albums of last year. The music it contains mirrors the post-industrial bleakness of the north whilst finding inspiration from the post-punk music it spawned. Katie Drew's vocals have the substance to subjegate everything around and the thickness of the woozy soundtracks proves no barrier as her voice rises and falls with assured grace, cutting through any restraints. The songs are inordinately pretty; the contrast between voice and music mirroring the band's adopted monochrome imagery, the white against the black. Atmosphere appears more important than notes; the songs working to create a mood that wavers from uncertainty, to resignation, to resolve. And in draping beauty on ashes there is the constant feeling that escapism lies at its very heart.

Of course, it is more difficult to escape in the live environment, even from The Escape Club, so the music is more governed by time and place. Yet the duo are determined to capture the essence of their recorded sound, with guitarist Joey Cobb tapping away at a bewildering array of pedals and spending half of the gig on the floor twisting buttons and losing himself in the distortion they produce. Drew is pretty much rooted to her keyboard. From the front, a lot of her vocals appear subliminal, overridden by the guitar noise and the thumping of a splendidly tight drummer who has joined the pair for this short UK tour. When she does let loose, it sounds great and the collective sound is pretty in the extreme. It's a short set, taken from Day By Day and this year's Are You EP, a triumph of detailing over performance. There's no real communication with the audience; it appears detachment is back in vogue, or just sheer nervousness. We've seen the wheel turn so many times now, it pretty much makes no odds.

Whereas White Flowers produced one of the best albums of last year, Just Mustard have done the same for this year, Heart Under offering up some huge walls of carefully shaped industrial noise over which Katie Ball drapes some powerfully compelling vocals. We were keen to see if the band could replicate the sheer power of songs such as 'Seven', 'Seed' and 'Still' in the live environment and it was soon obvious that this would present no problem. Guitars wail and grate, drums pound and the bass even throws out some Tracy Pew rhythms as Ball hugs her mic. We wonder whether the smallness of the stage is hampering the Dundalk quintet from moving about the stage; most of the action comes from guitarists David Noonan and Mete Kalyon, though like Joey Cobb both seem affiliated to the Alan Duggan school of guitaring, producing a myriad of sounds through seas of pedals.

The set is long, around an hour, and includes all of the Heart Under album, bar closing track 'Rivers', as well as 2019 single tracks 'Frank', 'October' and 'Seven', and 'Deaf' and 'Pigs' from the 2018 debut album Wednesday. Noonan joins in the vocals on the latter songs which is hugely effective and something that was missing on the most recent album. Not that this is a weakness on that record, but in the live scenario it opens up different paths.

Just Mustard are properly alternative, spitting out dislocation in 'October' and putting the audience's brains through the mincer with sharp and spiteful guitars. Ball's voice is powerful and emotive yet she is the picture of cool as she stands tall amid the barrage of sound. They have a presence that lesser bands strive to achieve yet seldom succeed, and communication with the audience again is at a minimum though this appears to be policy rather than a sign of nerves.

We haven't heard an album yet this year that comes close to Heart Under so if you can catch this band live, try and do so while you can still witness them in a tiny throwback of a venue such as this.

Set List: 23, I Am You, Seven, In Shade, Pigs, Early, Mirrors, Sore, Deaf, Frank, Blue Chalk, Still, October, Seed.