Boards of Canada ‘Inferno’ Review: A Comeback Album That Lacks Spark

In the years since 2013’s Tomorrow’s Harvest, Boards of Canada’s sound—crystalline cyber-synths matched with loopy, hip-hop-inspired rhythms—hasn’t evolved much. The beats are textural by default, with an emphasis not on songcraft but hypnotic atmosphere. The duo’s fifth studio album, Inferno, also continues their tradition of sprinkling spoken-word snippets between tracks of varying length.

The album’s 18 tracks run the gamut from the psychedelic guitar glaze of “Somewhere Right Now in the Future” to the featherweight ambience of “I Saw Through Platonia” to the more foreboding “Acts of Magic.” Deviations from Boards of Canada’s tried-and-true formula include a few tentative Middle Eastern flourishes, like sitar on “Blood in the Labyrinth” and a sampled Hare Krishna chant on “Naraka,” but neither makes much of a lasting impression.

For better or worse, the songs on Inferno bleed into each other, allowing you to feel your way through them at your own pace. What’s missing is the hooks of “Roygbiv” or the simple, understated power of the brief, drumless “Olson,” both from 1998’s acclaimed Music Has the Right to Children. “Prophecy at 1420 MHz,” which features the most fleshed-out arrangement here, and “Deep Time” come closest to reaching Boards of Canada’s past splendor.

Inferno purports to explore ideas of faith and politics, but the voices featured therein are obscured, smothered in synthetic effects or pitch-altered to sound either elfin or demonic—on “Father and Son,” vocal samples are time-stretched to form dialogue—to the point where it’s difficult to suss out a thematic through line. Though the album is consistent in its moody menace, it also consistently charts too-familiar territory.