Everyone's Crushed＜数量限定盤/Red Viny＞

ブルックリンの急先鋒デュオ、Water From Your Eyesが名門〈Matador〉移籍第一弾アルバムをリリース!

ニューウェーヴ、サイケ、インダストリアル、ポエトリー、アンビエント、フォーク、エレクトロニカ、クラウトロックと曲によって何が飛び出してくるか予測不能なアンチ・ポップ・スタイルで大きな注目を集めるブルックリンのデュオ、Water From Your Eyesが名門〈Matador〉と契約を交わし、移籍第一弾となる最新アルバム『Everyone's Crushed』をリリース!!
2021年にリリースされた前作『Structure』が年間ベストのダークホース盤としてインディ・リスナーの間で話題を呼び、満を持して完成した本作はメンバーのRachel BrownとNate Amosがある意味今までの作品をリセットし、もう一度デビュー・アルバムを作りあげたと語る通り、キュートでいて凶暴、生々しくも中毒性の高い実験的なポップ・ソング9曲を収録。
ピッチフォークでBest New Trackを獲得した先行シングルにして異形ダンス・ロック「Barley」から、デチューンされた弦楽器が織りなすドローンのカーテンがたなびく「14」まで、アナーキーでフリーフォームなブルックリン・アート・ロックの最新型が炸裂する傑作がここに誕生した。

With each release, Water from Your Eyes level up their genre-mashing sound. They moved away from their early New Order homages to explore everything from folk to motoriks to industrial music on 2019s Somebody Elses Song, then made a critical and creative breakthrough with 2021s Structure. As Nate Amos and Rachel Brown rifled through the psychic debris of their romantic breakup, they assembled their surreal spoken word, danceable rhythms, lilting vocal melodies, noisy synths into songs with a more clearly intentional viewpoint and greater emotional impact. The duo tightens its focus once more on its Matador debut, Everyones Crushed. If Water from Your Eyes rotated through their different modes on Structure, this time they shuffle them together into a more uniform -- but still surprising -- approach. The way its skronky songs are held together with subtle melodic gestures and unexpected hooks feels like a natural evolution from Structure. Water from Your Eyes seem to make this connection explicit by naming Crusheds opening song "Structure," but its one of their many in-jokes: the tracks glitchy, stuttering electronica actually repurposes some of the 2020 EP 33:44. Moves like these foreshadow how the albums immediate standouts lean into the duos cerebral mischief. "Barley" is a looping, cryptically catchy collage of Browns deadpan vocals and hypnotically flickering textures and rhythms that resemble design motifs as much as music (this is a band that once turned Rothko paintings into sound files, after all). Water from Your Eyes remain fascinated by how tiny shifts can make a massive difference; on the title track, Brown swaps words around to add nuance to the songs absurdist response to difficult times ("Im in love with everyone/And everything hurts/Im with everyone I hurt/And everythings love"). They sharpen their wit on the cheeky closing track "Buy My Product," which stares into the abyss and runs away from it with retail therapy, while the lumbering noise-pop of "True Life" strengthens Water from Your Eyes connections to the art-damaged underground sounds of the early 2000s. Brown recalls Karen Os chameleonic quality, switching effortlessly from sweet to mournful to blase as each song demands; there are also hints of Deerhoof in how easily the duo makes experimental music sound catchy and vice versa. Interestingly, the most abstract moments on Everyones Crushed are the most emotionally charged -- though perhaps that makes sense for a band whose name could be a translation of "crying" from an alien language. Water from Your Eyes knack for gorgeous melodies music gets its due on the questioning "Remember Not My Name," but the band goes deeper on "14," a Mica Levi-esque, string-laden ballad that grew out of Amos exercises in serialism and captures the gut-wrenching pain of goodbyes, even when theyre necessary, when Brown sings, "Im ready to throw you up." Some of Water from Your Eyes most consistently gripping music, the cohesion of Everyones Crushed lends a new vantage point on their music -- and its an exciting one.