Boards Of Canada – Inferno (2xLP)

Boards of Canada’s Inferno is the Scottish duo’s first album since 2013, ending a 13-year gap with a 70-minute set that leans into the darker edge of their catalogue. The clearest thread in the supplied material is continuity: this is still recognisably Boards of Canada, but shaped by the esoteric drift of their 2019 Societas X Tape mix and the foreboding atmosphere associated with Tomorrow’s Harvest.

What makes Inferno interesting is how it pushes familiar elements further rather than simply reviving them. The descriptions consistently point to signature melodies and analogue warmth, but also to a more shadowed, immersive sound, with manipulated speech samples given a larger role. Across pieces such as “Prophecy at 1420 MHz,” “Age Of Capricorn,” and “The Process,” the album is presented as a world of drifting melodies, fractured rhythms and disquieting vocal fragments.

That balance of nostalgia and unease has always been central to Boards of Canada, and Inferno sounds built for listeners who value that tension. After so long away, this return matters less as a reset than as a deepening of the duo’s strange, cinematic language: intimate in texture, expansive in scale, and still quietly unsettling.

Genre: Electronic