It's a Beautiful Place is the seventh studio album by American indie pop band Water from Your Eyes. The album was released on August 22, 2025, through Matador Records. It was supported by three singles and a tour across North America and Europe. Water from Your Eyes would begin working on new material in 2024, recording in Amos' bedroom, and in New York.
It's a Beautiful Place is an alternative pop and rock album that explores themes of cosmic insignificance versus human importance, the nature of meaning, and the challenges of optimism in a difficult world. Between September and December 2025, Water from Your Eyes embarked on a headlining tour for the album. Upon release, the album would receive critical acclaim from multiple publications.
Background
Most of the album's recording was done in Amos' bedroom,[1][2] with Amos and Brown striving to balance a worldview that holds factors of absurdity and existentialism.[3] The album was made out to be an experimental album, as Amos had stated "we wanted to present a wide range of styles in a way that acknowledges everything's just a tiny blip”.[4] Amos worked on his home computer producing the songs apart and reconstructing.[2][4] The album explores existential themes of cosmic insignificance versus human importance, the nature of meaning, and the challenges of optimism in a difficult world alongside the darker and deeper humor.[5][6] Musically, it blends various styles, from disco-infused alt-pop to folk-rock and psychedelic sounds, creating a unique and adventurous listening experience. It's a Beautiful Place's theme was written around the recording of their sixth studio album, Everyone's Crushed (2023).[2]
Composition
The album was recorded in New York by Rachel Brown and Nate Amos and features 10 tracks with a combined runtime of about 29 minutes; six of which containing lyrics and the other four being instrumentals.[4] Amelie Grice of Clash would write about the lead single "Life Signs" saying it "starts with a fast-paced, dry but stylish urgency which later erupts into a more typical Water From Your Eyes overflowing, energetic and enjoyably overstimulating style."[7] She also had felt the track "Born 2" had exploded "with an instrumental introduction reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine."[7] The track was heavily inspired by Brown’s interest in anarchist utopian novel The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin and 2017 polemic There Is No Unhappy Revolution by Marcello Tarí.[7]
Release and promotion
It's a Beautiful Place's lead single "Life Signs" would be released on June 4, 2025.[2][8] With a music video finding Water from Your Eyes trapped in an endless loop of television.[1] Brown stated that television was her "biggest passion."[1] "Playing Classics" would be released as the second single on July 15.[9] Followed by the third and final single "Nights in Armor" on August 18.[10] The album would be announced after the lead single's release, and arrived on August 22, 2025,[11] through Matador Records.[12][13] Following the release of Everyone's Crushed (2023), Water from Your Eyes would announce the It's a Beautiful Place Tour and its 48 concert dates throughout North America and Europe.[5][14] The tour began on September 22, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is expected to conclude on November 7, 2025 in Denver, Colorado.[15]
Commercial performance
The album would be release to all streaming platforms on August 22, 2025. In the United Kingdom, the album would peak at number 21 on the UK Independent Albums chart within a week of release.[16] Also seeing a peak of number 53 on the UK Album Downloads chart.[17] While in Scotland, It's a Beautiful Place had peaked number 74 on the Scottish Albums chart composed by the Official Charts Company.[18]
Editors at AnyDecentMusic? would rate It's a Beautiful Place an 8.1 out of 10, based on 15 scores.[19]According to the review aggregator Metacritic, It's a Beautiful Place received "universal acclaim" based on a weighted average score of 82 out of 100 from 15 critic scores.[20]
Philip Sherburne of Pitchfork rated the album an 8.3 out of 10, writing "super chill and totally destabilizing. To call it their [guitar record] would be an injustice to the range and the humor they find in it."[26]Paste's Vic Borlando would rate it 8.7 out of 10 saying the album "makes disenchantment feel as grandiose and overwhelming as falling out of love."[25] Meanwhile Exclaim's Eric Hill, an 8 out of 10. Hill would comment "the duo continue their upward trajectory, finding new and casually complex ways of expressing their musical minds."[3] Another 8 out of 10 came from Alison Ross of PopMatters who praised Brown's voice for having "a quality that draws you into its secretive sphere" and the group's "stunning" musical maturity.[12] Matty Pywell writing for NME would write "One of indie's most unique duos embrace sci-fi sounds, frightening existentialism and a newfound heaviness," rating the record of 4 out of 5.[24]
Tom Phelan of Far Out Magazine felt that it "feeds a vast array of styles into its aural processor in such an incongruous flair that, rather than merely rustling up a web of idiosyncratic genre fusions, the musical flavours [they] so evidently love are harnessed on a deeper, essential level."[28] Devin Birse of The Line of Best Fit would write about It's a Beautiful Place saying it’s "a screeching Hail Mary, a short self-imploding burst of infinity guitars held together by a complex web of mathy rhythms."[22]The Skinny's Noah Barker felt that while the material is "scarce," the quality is a "renewable resource on par with a nuclear fusion plant. Choruses hum, drumlines bounce, and there's always enough subversion for leftovers".[27] Amelie Grice writing for Clash would write that [it] is "a stylish and composed exploration of alternative musical forms. There is a distinctive confidence as Rachel Brown and Nate Amos weave nu-metal backbeat, indie guitar twang, piano motifs and deadpan vocals together."[7] While DIY's Dylan McNally would say that it's "weird–and at times disorientating in its layers–but always brilliant. Above all else, it lives up to its name."[6]
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