“Rachel Brown and Nate Amos make music that’s architecturally bizarre, welded together from sunny tunes and surreal poems, brain–battered rock and suspenseful orchestrals.” – Pitchfork on “Barley” (Best New Track)
“A playground chant reimagined by Sonic Youth” – New York Times on “Barley”
“Nobody is doing it quite like NYC duo Rachel Brown and Nate Amos” – The Fader
“Barley is a kind of surrealist dance burner, the chugging electronics given a future–facing overhaul”
– Stereogum
“One of the quirkiest…most discordant instrumentals that I’ve heard on a track that’s pretty much a pop song” – The Needle Drop on “Barley”
Out May 26, ‘Everyone’s Crushed’ is the Matador Records debut from Brooklyn duo Water From Your Eyes. Today, watch the animated video for the album’s second single, ‘True Life,’ which teams ping–ponging guitar riffs with drop–tuned bass and an unexpected shoutout to Neil Young.
“‘True life’ is our Neil Young–inspired quasi–nu metal stomp,” explains the band. “It is also intended to be our ‘Short Skirt / Long Jacket.’ The bridge was initially meant to contain lyrics from ‘Cinnamon Girl,’ but Neil Young’s lawyers wouldn’t let us use them. Now they are about how Neil Young wouldn’t let us use his words. The rest of the song deals with life and assorted complications of the material world.”
Pitchfork included ‘Everyone’s Crushed’ among the spring’s most anticipated records and the New York Times recently named Water From Your Eyes a “new artist you need to hear.” Watch the video for first single ‘Barley,’ directed by the band’s Rachel Brown, below.
Life is horribly dark right now. And yet, it is not unfunny. That’s the sentiment that animates Water From Your Eyes on their new album, and first for Matador, ‘Everyone’s Crushed,’ out May 26. On the follow–up to the Brooklyn duo’s 2021 breakthrough, ‘Structure,’Rachel Brown (they/them) and Nate Amos (he/him) find silliness and fatalism dancing in a frantic lockstep, using heart palpitating rhythms and absurdist, deadpan lyrics to convey stories of personal and societal unease. Described by Brown as Water From Your Eyes’ most collaborative record ever, it’s a swollen contusion of an album: experimental pop music that’s pretty and violent, raw and indelible.
Read the full album bio by Shaad D’Souza HERE.
