Life Signs


"Life Signs" is a song by the American indie pop band Water from Your Eyes, released on June 4, 2025, by Matador Records. The song was written by Rachel Brown, who produced it alongside audio engineer Howie Weinberg. It is a rock and dream pop song exploring themes of existential dissonance.

Background and composition

"Life Signs" is 4 minutes and 32 seconds long. In an interview with Nylon, Amos would say "The guitar part in 'Life Signs' started as a 24-note quarter-tone series generated by a random number generator." Later in an interview with DIY Amos would state that the song was arranged to be more of a "rock" song. Going further into detail, "but overall it didn’t have much of an effect on the album–most of it was written before we had the full live band anyway." Post-Trash's Alex Hanse would comment on the song's "peal of electric guitar" feeling that it introduced "the dueling chug of stacked guitars".

Critical reception

Rolling Stone's Jon Blistein had felt that Life Signs finds the duo delving into the "crunchy riffage of late-90s, early-Y2k alt-rock, without sacrificing the "avant-garde" twists and turns that are a hallmark of output." Alison Ross of PopMatters would classify Life Signs' genre as hard rock which suddenly switches to dream pop. Amelie Grice of Clash would write about the song 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 over-stimulating style." Pitchfork's Holden Seidlitz would say the song is "filled with unresolved tension" and "operates like language poetry, preserving the band’s freneticism and oddity in doomscroll onomatopoeia." Joseph Mastel of Spill Magazine would comment on the "deadpan spoken word vocal style" displayed by Rachel Brown.

Music video

The official music video for "Life Signs" was released alongside the song on June 4, 2025. It was directed by Rachel Brown. The video takes place in television. As described by Jon Blistein of Rolling Stone, it finds the duo "trapped in an endless loop of television as both participants in and insatiable viewers of a barrage of shows and commercials."

Personnel