Water From Your Eyes | Morgan Garrett
YES Pink Room, Manchester
14th November 2025

Manchester’s intrepid music fans venture out into Storm Claudia to get down to Brooklyn peculiarities Water From Your Eyes – Ian Burke and his soggy notepad squelched along for Louder Than War.

Gig goers are a determined bunch. A yellow weather warning and Storm Claudia dumping her watery fury all over the city means the temptation to swap a night on the tiles for an evening of snuggling a hot water bottle under blankets runs strong. Yet the masses are legion in Manchester Musicopolis, drenched but eager, with a nebula of steam evaporating from matted hair, sodden jeans and inundated pac-a-macs.

Those who brave the elements early are treated to a set of horror performance art from Morgan Garrett. The Philadelphia experimentalist headbangs to barely implied rhythms and pulls his scariest demonic faces between strobe bursts. Doors creak, branches shake, static hisses – it’s Aphex Twin’s Come to Daddy video made flesh.

There are no songs as such, just the briefest of gaps between movements. Those micro pauses meet with the odd whoop but mostly elicit confused glances between punters and the odd stifled laugh. Garrett’s itchy black metal vocals even carry on when the mic drops from its stand, so maybe he really is possessed by some sort of mischievous poltergeist. A memorable if head-scratching turn.

Water From Your Eyes have come a long way from their first Manchester show in May 2022. They were due to play in the YES Basement, but on selling the merest dribble of tickets, that night’s Pink Room headliners, kiwi songwriter Jonathan Bree invited them to open for him upstairs. By contrast, tonight’s show – this whole UK and Ireland run, in fact – is sold out.

“I spent a lot of time here,” says singer Rachel Brown from behind black shades that could double-up as swimming goggles. “It reminds me of my hometown, Chicago, which is the greatest city in America. Equally, Manchester is the greatest city here.” It’s a line she probably kept to herself last night in London, but it gets the crowd on side with a lusty roar.

The band are at their potent best when being weird. Barley, in which each instrument cartwheels along on its own path before somehow converging into a cohesive whole, is an early highlight. Even recent single Nights In Armour cackles in the face of convention; Nate Amos, a picture of concentration and canvas of ideas, straps a capo to his dark green Gibson’s 10th fret before tickling out a deft riff that locks onto everyone’s dancing bones.

Whereas the drums take a back seat production-wise on their new It’s a Beautiful Place album, they’re literally out front tonight like a recreation of a 1970s episode of Top of the Pops. Bailey Wollowitz switches between tippy-tappy hi-hat fanning and the all-out slaughter of his quivering toms. Occasionally, as on Born 2, he does so during the same song. Meanwhile, guitarist/bassist Al Nardo – with eyeliner wingspan to rival that of an albatross – sways on the spot in broad strokes, their instrument seemingly taking the lead in a musical version of Emu to Nardo’s Rod Hull.

The group have a habit of unearthing curious melodies from down the back of the settee. It might only be a fleeting moment, such as the skittish beat underpinning True Life or the subtle meanders of Quotations, a welcome resurrection from their 2021 Structure album, but their knack for hitting the sweet spot is uncanny. That they manage this with Brown’s deadpan delivery and none of the bombast or showiness of the support act is a testament to their songcraft.

Playing Classics, ripe for remixing, takes us in a more dancefloor-friendly direction as the gig draws to a close, with the equally groovesome encore Track Five seeing Brown wave arms akimbo. It may be that Water From Your Eyes embrace their dancier side more on future albums, it’d be a natural evolution and it’s unlikely their fans would object. Just as long as they keep things weird enough.

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Water From Your Eyes‘ new album ‘It’s a Beautiful Place‘ is out now on Matador Records.

All words by Ian Burke. You can read more of his Louder Than War reviews on his author’s archive.

All images by Andrew Twambley