| It's a Beautiful Place | ||||
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | August 22, 2025 | |||
| Recorded | 2024–2025 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 29:11 | |||
| Label | Matador | |||
| Producer | Nate Amos | |||
| Water from Your Eyes chronology | ||||
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| Singles from It's a Beautiful Place | ||||
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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 received critical acclaim from multiple publications.
Most of the recording of It's a Beautiful Place was done in Amos' bedroom, [1] [2] with Amos and Brown striving to balance a worldview that holds factors of absurdity and existentialism. [3] Amos had worked on his home computer while producing the songs. [2] [4] It's a Beautiful Place is Water from Your Eyes' seventh studio album, [3] which explores 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] Amelie Grice of Clash wrote 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]
It's a Beautiful Place's lead single "Life Signs" was released on June 4, 2025. [2] [8] "Playing Classics" was released as the second single on July 15. [9] It was followed by the third and final single, "Nights in Armor", on August 18. [10] The album was 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 announced the It's a Beautiful Place Tour and its 48 concert dates throughout North America and Europe. [5] [14] The North American leg of the tour began on September 22, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and had concluded on November 7, 2025 in Denver, Colorado. [15] While the European leg would start about a week later and end on December 7. [15]
It's a Beautiful Place was released to all streaming platforms on August 22, 2025. In the United Kingdom, the album peaked at number 21 on the UK Independent Albums chart within a week of release. [16] It also saw a peak of number 53 on the UK Album Downloads chart. [17] In Scotland, It's a Beautiful Place peaked number 74 on the Scottish Albums chart composed by the Official Charts Company. [18]
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AnyDecentMusic? | 8.1/10 [19] |
| Metacritic | 82/100 [20] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic | |
| Clash | 8/10 [7] |
| Exclaim! | 8/10 [3] |
| The Line of Best Fit | 8/10 [22] |
| Mojo | |
| NME | |
| Paste | 8.7/10 [25] |
| Pitchfork | 8.3/10 [26] |
| PopMatters | 8/10 [12] |
| The Skinny | |
Editors at AnyDecentMusic? rated 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 gave the album an 8 out of 10. Hill commented "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 wrote "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]
Devin Birse of The Line of Best Fit wrote 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] DIY 's Dylan McNally said that it is "weird–and at times disorientating in its layers–but always brilliant. Above all else, it lives up to its name." [6]
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "One Small Step" | 0:26 |
| 2. | "Life Signs" | 4:32 |
| 3. | "Nights in Armor" | 3:09 |
| 4. | "Born 2" | 4:24 |
| 5. | "You Don't Believe in God?" | 1:25 |
| 6. | "Spaceship" | 4:49 |
| 7. | "Playing Classics" | 5:53 |
| 8. | "It's a Beautiful Place" | 0:50 |
| 9. | "Blood on the Dollar" | 2:40 |
| 10. | "For Mankind" | 0:59 |
| Total length: | 29:11 | |
| Chart (2025) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Scottish Albums (OCC) [18] | 74 |
| UK Album Downloads (OCC) [17] | 53 |
| UK Independent Albums (OCC) [16] | 21 |
| Region | Date | Format(s) | Version | Label | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Various | August 22, 2025 | Original | Matador Records | [29] | |