october 3rd, 2025 - detroit, michigan

Water From Your Eyes is the brain child of Rachel Brown (vocals) and Nate Amos (multi-instrumentalist), born out of a dedication to humor, genre-bending, reflection, and complexity both lyrically and sonically. The duo began making music together almost a decade ago after meeting in Chicago in 2016, but hit their stride in the mainstream with their 2023 album Everyone’s Crushed. Now it’s 2025, and they have people hanging onto every word and every beat they’ve produced with their new album It’s a Beautiful Place — culminating at a stop at El Club in Detroit this past Friday.

The night started off strong with a heavy-handed shoegaze-y rock set from openers Her New Knife, followed by Water From Your Eyes stepping on stage shortly after to an intimate and attentive crowd. The duo opened with “For Mankind”, a wrap around instrumental track that shares the same sound as the album opener “One Small Step” from their latest release. Both tracks welcome you into their thoughtful trippy-pop world, and in the physical space of El Club, the introductory greeting is no different. With the stage adorned in acid-trip projector visuals, the crowd was transported into their beautiful, complicated place.

“Born 2” kicks off with a peak into their rock side, with heavy guitar and drums backing Brown’s grappling questions on where humanity lands in the dichotomy we’ve created for our world. “The world is so beautiful / but born to machines that you swear, that’s so weird...Yeah, born to hate / Killing them, it’s killing me”, Brown sings behind their white sunglasses. With Amos standing to their left, the duo is washed in color and texture from abstract, swirling rectangles that blur the lines between where they start and the projection ends — heavily tying technology into their set and into their questions on humanity.

“Born 2” is a strong narrative start to their set, as it sets up what Water From Your Eyes are trying to achieve through this era of their music. With songs like “You don’t believe in God?”, “Blood on the Dollar”, and the aptly named “Spaceship” in the set, the New York art-pop duo can be seen grappling with space. The black, sprawling abyss of stars, planets, and supernovas on one hand, but also our own seismic problems and humanity in relation to it. “I don't want to watch you die / Maybe that's the reason why / My eyes are seeing space on the screen”, Brown declared to the crowd on “Blood on the Dollar”. While stylistically deviating from the rest of the album through a laid back, bass-heavy sound (an auditory nod to Brown and Amos’ roots in their solo projects thanks for coming and This is Lorelei respectively), it falls in line with the rest of It’s a Beautiful Place’s ethos — but this time acknowledging mortality of people in relation to the bigger picture.

Brown and Amos did have moments away from the existential questions during their time spent at El Club through “Structure”, “Barley”, and “Out there” from their 2023 record Everyone’s Crushed. They don’t stray too far sonically with pops of synth and reliance on Amos’ heavy guitar skillset, but a different temperature is brought to the stage through jumpy guitar riffs and an even heavier lean into 80’s synth than their 2025 releases.

Throughout the night, Brown spent the instrumental breaks swinging back and forth to every beat, chatting with the crowd about their family being from Michigan and having to give advice to someone who eats faces (separate topics), as well as taking a moment to acknowledge the current state of our world. Although the moments of stage chatter were brief, they still rounded out the perfectly balanced “somewhere between weird and serious” magic Water From Your Eyes carries all the way through.

The night came to a close with their Charli xcx inspired, experimental dance song “Playing Classics”. And while admittedly this is a personal favorite of mine (it’s most likely already settled into the top of my Spotify wrapped for this year), I wasn’t alone in anxiously waiting to hear the catchy sped up hi-hat intro. Once the waves of Brown’s methodical vocals hit, there wasn’t a stationary person in the house. The crowd fell in line almost instantly with the tempo and bridge of the song — “Practice shake it, you're free”. A perfect showcase of their existentialist, yet dance-heavy sound.

The show officially signed off with an encore of “Track Five” from their 2021 album Structure, obviously with a hint of “Lose Yourself” by Eminem after the intro that was requested from a knowing fan in the crowd. Because, in true Water From Your Eyes fashion, accept the unexpected and make sure have a little fun.

You can catch Water From Your Eyes on the rest of their 2025 tour, finishing up their U.S. tour now through November before heading overseas to start their Europe leg.