When a DIY band signs with a top-tier indie label, fans often worry whether the previous scrappy charm can still be captured amid a more traditional music business arrangement. Fortunately, Matador has proven to be the right home for experimental indie pop duo Water From Your Eyes, one of the few young bands of today that live up to the genre’s moniker. Delivered in deadpan, Rachel Brown’s introspective lyrics find humour in the chaos of life, while multi-instrumentalist Nate Amos’ polyrhythmic sounds complement the frenetic wordplay of “Barley” and the sardonic closing track “Buy My Product.” “Everyone’s Crushed” marks an exciting new era in the indie big leagues for the duo, showing its expansive range.
On “Everyone’s Crushed”, The Brooklyn duo Water From Your Eyes continues to carve out a distinctive path with a refreshingly original album that feels much more like a storming debut than their sixth full-length.
Nate Amos and Rachel Brown started writing music together in Chicago, 2016, over a conversation about Power, Corruption & Lies. Since then, Water From Your Eyes’ evolution has amassed a back catalogue which capably covers a ridiculously broad range of genres, from electronic dance, folk, jazz, beat poetry, indie rock and more. Their breakthrough album, 2021’s “Structure”, hinted at great things to come with a killer combination of silliness and fatalism intertwined with left-field pulsating rhythms and deadpan lyrics.
“Everyone’s Crushed” feels much more than the culmination of these past releases though, with confident strides toward a sound that is uniquely their own: an electrifying bricolage of industrial polyrhythms, chunky bass lines, ambient drones, synth strings and neat microtonal mini-riffs, all sliced, diced and repurposed into unconventional song structures. In short, “Everyone’s Crushed” swells and swoons with an experimental sound that is both beautiful and violent, and like nothing else you will hear this year.
Water From Your Eyes the new album ‘Everyone’s Crushed’ out now on Matador Records.
The Fat Angel Sings 