Trailblazing Canadian electronic duo Purity Ring return with their highly anticipated self-titled fourth album, out today via digital platforms. Alongside the release, they’ve unveiled the official video for “the long night,” directed by Grant Spanier — a kaleidoscopic preview of the immersive visuals fans will experience on their upcoming Place Of My Own tour, kicking off October 13. Watch here.
Purity Ring is their most expansive work to date, a concept album inspired by RPG worlds like Nier Automata and Final Fantasy X. It follows two fictionalized versions of mj and Corin on a quest to build a gentler world amid ruins. While earlier albums leaned on body-horror imagery and ethereal synths, this release turns toward fantastical landscapes, both sonically and lyrically.
Corin sculpts lush soundscapes with vintage synths, pan flutes, classical guitar, and breakbeats, while mj pushes her vocal delivery into thrilling new forms — part stream-of-consciousness, part spell. Tracks like “memory ruins” and “red the sunrise” shimmer with dreamlike textures, while “the long night” pulses with a heartbeat rhythm beneath ominous trance-infused synths. The lyric “I’ve been blacking out but I will come back changed” lingers like a prophecy.
The accompanying video bathes viewers in shifting light and shadow, translating the duo’s sound into surreal visual language. Collaborator Mike Sunday also helped craft the album’s visual world, designing a sensory landscape that echoes both Corin’s production and mj’s poetic narrative.
Review Element
This record feels like Purity Ring’s boldest step yet. By weaving caregiving, grief, and dreaming into a fantastical frame, they’ve found a way to expand their aesthetic while grounding it in lived experience. The result is both otherworldly and deeply human.
Rating: 8.5 / 10