Everyone's Crushed (studio album) by Water From Your Eyes

I was quite surprised to find out that 'Everyone's Crushed' wasn't a debut album, I'd not heard of Water From Your Eyes before and the record is brimming with ideas that feel ahead of their time, even if things are a bit unfocussed. There's a lot of eye catching tracks here, the repetitive build of 'Barley' and the driving fuzzy guitars of 'True Life' are really effective at using abrasive sounds in what would otherwise be catchy and accessible song structures. This willingness to create a kind of harsh pop music generally works really well and I think that Rachel Brown's laid back vocals do a lot of heavy lifting here. These kinds of tracks stay fun and relaxed because the weirder elements of the tracks are well anchored. This vocal style also draws attention to the lyrics, which are another strength, varying between being ironic, quite deeply emotional and downright cryptic. For me the slower brooding tracks are what work best, with '14' being the standout track on the record. The almost mournful organs pair so well with the repeated lyrics, which are more effectively sung by Rachel than anything else on the record. There's a real sense of unease through the track, the lyrics are once again hard to decipher but make a kind of harsh sense, there's something so kind of conflicting and tough about the line "I'm ready to throw you up" that I struggle to explain, but it does make a kind of emotional sense.

From HoldenM 05/31/2023 00:06

Some cool art rock sounds. More accessible than a Xiu Xiu or Black Midi, but in a similar tradition.