Experimental duo Allegories return with “The Next Life,” a bleak, immersive shoegaze-inflected indie rock single that stares directly into existential despair without flinching. Teetering on the edge of an anthem but refusing release, the track explores nihilism, deferred hope, and the hollow promise that meaning will arrive somewhere beyond the present moment.

“There’s no way around it,” Adam Bentley, one half of the duo, explains. “This is the most pessimistic reflection on life and existence I’ve ever put forward.”

Originally written on ukulele, “The Next Life” underwent multiple transformations before reaching its final form. What began as a skeletal folk sketch was first recontextualized through electronic instrumentation, then reshaped again using the organic, analog tools most associated with a rock band. Layers of guitar, bass, and drums form the foundation, while swirling electronic textures bind everything together to create a dense, emotional atmosphere that feels simultaneously expansive and suffocating.

Sonically, the track gestures toward transcendence, brushing against the possibility of uplift before deliberately collapsing inward. “Just as it feels ready to lift its skinny fists to the heavens and brush against hope, I instead dig deeper into a nihilistic, defeated worldview,” Bentley says. In the next life, we’re told, our prayers will be answered. Our dreams are achieved. The world is at last in harmony.”

The result is a song that weaponizes contrast: anthemic momentum undercut by existential resignation. “The Next Life” doesn’t offer comfort or resolution; it interrogates the idea that relief is always postponed, always elsewhere. “Because really,” Bentley asks, “what is the next life?”