After a publicity campaign of mysterious hexagons, Boards of Canada finally ignited their Inferno album. So is it any good? Are the Boards fires still burning, or are they poking an old campfire with a stick as their old embers fade?
It is worth leading any review with an unfortunate truth. No album is worth a 13-year wait. Sorry, Canada lads. Nothing is worth the hype BoC have received, especially as there are other albums equally worthy of publicity. The Black Dog have followed up their Loud Ambient album. The Knife’s Olof Dreijer has dropped his first solo album. Luke Vibert has revived his Plug project. Rival Consoles has a new game soundtrack. So let’s acknowledge that the hype is all hot air. Okay? Good. Now on to the music.
Their melted analogue synths are, of course, front and centre. Although the familiarity is welcome, herein lies a risk. This is only BoC’s second album since Armando Iannucci gifted us his satirical studio show Time Trumpet. I spent not an insignificant amount of time expecting Kevin Eldon to pop up singing Machadaynu. By relying on such a recognisable signature sound, one that has been copied and parodied for literally decades, BoC are putting themselves at risk.
The good news is that what they do with those detuned circuits is so satisfying. They are very expert knob twiddlers, and not once do they forget that they are here to entertain us. We all know the satisfying “aaah, they’re back” drop in Prophecy At 1420 MHz. Check out also the melancholic harpsichord of Blood In The Labyrinth. The saturated sass of Arena Americanada. The heavenly nostalgia of You Retreat In Time And Space, perhaps the track that most calls back to previous albums. It’s familiar territory but that’s no bad thing.
The surprises come with the album’s theme. I’m hoping the title Inferno refers to Dante’s famous 14th-century poetry and not to Dan Brown’s 2013 novel of worthless word fudge. Like any good inferno worth its inferning, I’m delighted to reveal that the album stays true to its title theme: this Boards Of Canada work is a portal to hell.
Sort of. We’re navigated down the Styx by its samples, a new-age melange of religious mumbo jumbo. It’s this stuff that provides the album’s moments of delight. Naraka’s simple synth line lurks in shadows before becoming a haunting Hare Krishna chant. The woozy and slightly bonkers Father And Son chops up a documentary about the Children Of God (“I love you, but I love the Lord”). A televangelist pops up on Age Of Capricorn.
Some will find their samples on-the-nose. The Guardian called the Krishna material “ghastly”. But I have never been happier to listen to a head-nodder like The Word Becomes Flesh in which samples evoke Snivilisation-era Orbital, only with added robot voice and chick embryo bants.
I’ll wrap it up here. Maybe it needed fewer interludes and perhaps hidden inside Inferno is a really tight 12-track masterpiece. And yes, it’s on-the-nose, with BoC honking their familiar retro schnozz over and over again. But consider this: comebacks are a risk. Previous big-name career revivals gave us Chinese Democracy (eeeugh) and The Second Coming (don’t @ me), so the fact Boards landed this return so solidly qualifies Inferno as a triumph.
Play it. Play it lots. Play it so much that the needle on your record goes on fire, and in the ensuing blaze of smouldering synths and melted hexagons, be assured that the world is a better place for Boards Of Canada’s extremely listenable devilry.
Further Fats: Orbital's Wonky – a review (2012)
Further Fats: Remember when Boards of Canada remixed Colonel Abrams? (2018)
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