I know harsh industrial and experimentalist noise isn’t everybody’s thing. It isn’t really mine, if we’re being honest. But every now and then a probably-already-caustic artistic progression like that of Dutch two-piece All Are to Return veers into body-horror, or psychological horror, or in the case of “Arcology,” the band’s new single, a sandpaper-to-the-consciousness wash of unkind noise.

All Are to Return earlier in 2025 released their Līmen EP, for each song from which a video was made. One, for “The Augur,” premiered here. I’m not sure if the same thing is happening for “Arcology” or not, and I guess sometimes you just have to resign yourself to a thing being obscure. In a world surrounded by information, where data is traded as a commodity, having to wait for questions to be answered feels like part of the band’s aesthetic. Time will answer or it won’t. All Are to Return — the duo of F and N — draw a curtain of distorted drone over the piece’s five minutes, but for sure you can find yourself lost in it during that time, the soundwaves their own kind of undulating mantra, hypnotic for those either at or able to align to the frequencies.

And that’s really the question here, with “Arcology,” All Are to Return more broadly, or, zoomed out from that, any avant garde or experimentalist noise — which as much as it’s a genre has never been one geared toward accessibility — can you get to the level of expression the band are on? Do the evocations hit home as the line of synth before about the four-minute mark in “Arcology” recalls past better-futures already dissipated in a hellscape present? It can barely seem to be music, or words, but does it speak to you?

Thematically, All Are to Return purport to be exploring the endgame future of modern capitalism. Will you still pay rent or are we all just waiting for life itself to become a subscription service with a privacy agreement no one reads and a premium tier with increasing infiltration of advertising. As to how we got here, surely some know and others have a variety of guesses, but it doesn’t matter since if anything was ever to be learned from the horror-show the lesson would long since have been revealed. In All Are to Return, I hear our present moment, unfiltered. Years that new lows yet to be spiraled upon will have us pining for as “simpler times.” Imagine that for a minute.

Now you’re ready for “Arcology.” You’ll find it on the player below, followed by a quick quote from the band and more audio for your perusal.

Enjoy:

All Are to Return, “Arcology” premiere

“This is the edifice of the future. Incorporating dichotomies of in and outside – those who belong and that which is other. Conforming to corporate logics of profit and margins dictating entry and expulsion. It is the ultimate structure of enshrined privilege – the ark of capital – while the rest of us swelter and sink.”

All Are to Return, Līmen (2025)

All Are to Return, III (2024)

All Are to Return on Bandcamp

All Are to Return on Soundcloud

All Are to Return website

Netherlands-based caustic industrial two-piece All Are to Return will release a new audio/visual EP, Līmen, sometime in the near future. The persistently harsh outfit, which as ever is comprised solely of F and N, last Spring made the dark offering of AATR III (review here) and with it conjured a litany of bodily and/or existential terrors, and the upcoming four-tracker is consistent in that regard while pivoting to an even noisier approach. That is to say, while not lacking in the first place for cinematic foreboding or an aurally bleak cast, All Are to Return are upping the stakes of their already punishing methodology.

What does this mean for the listener? A new litmus in Līmen? I mean, maybe. It likely depends on how much time you’ve spent embroiled in harsh noise and drone. “The Augur,” the video for which premieres below with a kind of narrative playing out in text for lyrics that aren’t there — for something so extreme in its purposes generally, it’s hard not to think of the words as part of a manifesto — is emblematic of the intention behind what follows it on the mercifully brief outing (not taking the piss; these are cruel sounds and it’s not an accident; if it was pleasant it would be a different kind of art), as “Sujet Maudite” comes to howl before dropping to silence amid suitably anti-capitalist treatise, “The Veil” ties in notions of the physical self while droning lower and more primal, and “That Which Listens” reminds in rhythmic minimalism of the connections underlying existence.

The centaur question — I was trying to write “central” there, but I acquiesce to autocorrect based on the image of slaying the centaur of one’s own ignorance — is whether or not you can hang with All Are to Return as they are here. It’s not the most outwardly furious they’ve ever been, but especially on headphones hypnotized by the slow motion of the video on full screen, Līmen plays out like an arthouse installation more than a collection of songs, and it’s probably best if it’s consumed that way as well. What I’m trying to say is be ready and willing to leave your comfort zone behind because the greater likelihood is All Are to Return are coming from and speaking to a place well outside of it. If you’re up for a challenge, so are they.

And no, three minutes of harsh noise ambience probably isn’t going to deconstruct your consciousness, but it does expand the idea of what the band’s songs can do, is heavy in ways beyond volume and, in combination with the video/text, finds a depth of impression generally reserved for the psychedelic. Does that make Līmen a kind of nightmare machine psych? I don’t have a better thing to call it, save perhaps for “hellish.”

“The Augur” premieres below. Please enjoy:

All Are to Return, “The Augur” video premiere

All Are To Return līmen is an AV-release consisting of 4 videos with an interconnected narrative, of which The Augur is the first chapter.

Tracklisting:
1. The Augur
2. Sujet Maudite
3. The Veil
4. That Which Listens

Credits:
Music, video and narrative by All Are To Return.

All Are to Return, III (2024)

All Are to Return on Bandcamp

All Are to Return on Soundcloud

All Are to Return website

Tartarus Records store

Italian three-piece Ivy Garden of the Desert — who’ve gotten way harder to classify as time has gone on than their “we play stoner rock” moniker implies — are getting ready to release their fourth EP later this month. Out Sept. 21, Limen follows a trilogy of shorter releases set up as a running theme but that nonetheless grew increasingly complex from one to the next. The newly-posted video for “Please” from Limen shows the three-piece continuing to progress. I’m not sure if it’s part of the same narrative thread as the trilogy or if they’re onto something else entirely in theme — they call it a “bridge,” so take that as you will — but they’ve clearly worked hard to find a progressive niche for themselves in heavy rock, and more and more they seem to be succeeding.

To wit, “Please” takes a near-industrial rhythmic foundation and sets it against a brooding prog-heavy riff, building and getting louder as it moves forward, but never quite giving up its atmospheric beginning, bolstered through an early stretch of piano and quiet vocals. If it takes a listen or two to fully sink in, that’s pretty clearly the idea, so cheers to Ivy Garden of the Desert for their continuing refusal to be pinned down to one side or the other.

If you’re sensitive to strobe, you might want to watch out for the second part of the video, after it switches from the living room to the blue flashing darkness, but even if you wind up just listening, it’s worth the time to do that. Either way, enjoy:

Ivy Garden of the Desert, “Please” official video

Electric Valley Records is pleased to announce a new release!!!

IVY GARDEN OF THE DESERT – LIMEN

“Limen” is the bridge EP that takes place between the Ivy-Trilogy concept (released by Nasoni Records) and the band’s first full-lenght (2017/2018?).
Release date: September 21th, 2015

Video credits: full production by Paolo Martini & I.G.O.T.D.

Ivy Garden of the Desert on Thee Facebooks

Electric Valley Records

That headline isn’t a question, by they way. Italian heavy rock trio Ivy Garden of the Desert are definitely making a monster in the video, and then they seem to be headbanging with that monster in their underwear? Not really sure how it gets to that point, but it does, and even given that, my favorite part of the entire clip is when it says at the very beginning that it’s based on a true story. It’s true, Frankenstein was a story.

Still, the three-piece from Treviso get down with heavy grooves no less disturbing in the new song “Life?” which comes from their forthcoming Limen EP, their first offering following earlier 2013’s I Ate of the Plant and it was Good, which concluded a series of three extended play releases that also resulted in 2012’s Blood is Love (review here) and the preceding 2011 outing, Docile (review here). Some of the riffing speaks to a kind of dark metal feel like a slightly more psychedelic Cultura Tres, brooding with an underlying aggression that you’re never quite sure when or if it’s going to take off.

And yes, the story of the scientist named “I Doesn’t Care” does end (spoiler alert) with a hilarious headbang session, so kudos to Ivy Garden — guitarist/vocalist Diego Bizzaro, bassist Paolo Martini and drummer Alexander Puntel — for not taking themselves too seriously even when making a video that’s pretty grim up to that point, playing out like a silent horror movie tinted green. They’ve never shied away when it’s been time to get weird, and “Life?” is no exception.

Enjoy:

Ivy Garden of the Desert, “Life?” official video