Angine de Poitrine – Vol.II Review 

For those well-versed in mid-2010s light entertainment criticism, Angine de Poitrine may dig deep into your brain. It’ll rake through all sorts of files, be it a strange fear of the Nintendo GameCube loading screen or the time you were nearly hit by a Porsche when attending football charity game as a child. But Vol.II, the latest album from the disguised Canadian duo, digs much deeper. Mr. Noseybonk is the first person that comes to mind when looking at this wretched, polka-dot duo. Forget the music for a second, as ambitious and creatively giving it may be. Stuart Ashen once made a cameo, masked appearance on an episode of Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe, and that is exactly what this pair feels like. Creeping, never quite realised, and that feeling of a fictional character being planted in the real world. Sort of like Gymskin, or those people who dress up as Coneheads. Whatever the case, it all adds to the fascinating appeal of Angine de Poitrine, whose second album has exploded in a way nobody could’ve quite realised.  

What begins as garbled and indescribable noise is soon given purpose and tempo. That’s what Angine de Poitrine does on all six tracks here. They’re somewhere between art-rock jazz and Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music. Give it a minute and then it really gets going. Fabienk, the opening track which starts out as a series of noises you’d be concerned to hear while aboard a submarine, spins itself into a groovy, thrill-laden spectacle. You can hear where the duo is pulling from for this one. That math rock core is crucial but so too are the Eastern European musical influences and the danceability that comes with that. Great fun to the passing listener and enough for those moved by math rock intricacies to sink their teeth into. An accessible starting point for such a genre is rare to find and Angine de Poitrine has offered a decent one here. Excitable instrumental thrills are what they build up best across this piece.  

Instrumentally engaging, that’s all Vol.II has to be, really, and it does the job. How long it can hold that style for, that’s up to your math rock limits. Each song offers something wildly different to the last, the thumping sound heard in Mata Zyklek is a thrill, for instance, that doesn’t quite feature elsewhere. This is such a rallying cry against artificial intelligence and the silver sleekness that is profiled by bigger tech companies, it’s a tad ironic that Googling Angine de Poitrine will have a polka dot effect, as if the coders and programmers at that sick and twisted factory are actively engaging with what the band does here. What Angine de Poitrine has successfully realised, outside of the music, is that an odd visual is going to stick out as a talking point no matter the quality. Their polka-dot, pyramid-featuring album cover’s weirdness is matched by the off-kilter tone set on Sarniezz, for instance.  

But an instrumental style and out-there image just isn’t enough to maintain an audience. It’s working for now, because it’s the flavour of the month, not because the duo does anything particularly masterful. Each song on Vol.II has just enough to it to warrant listening again and again. Angine de Poitrine is a charming adaptation of world music in spots like Utzp, though there is a worry that these polka dot characters will become caricatures if they don’t find a deeper feeling for their image. Great fun the whole way through but it’s one of those that you need to be in a very specific mood for. Angor is discomforting nightmare fuel. It’s also an instrumental thrill that hears the band nail the tone and type of music they’re going for. If anything, it’s interesting to wonder where they go from here. That’s the hook they needed, and Angine de Poitrine will succeed from there.