The mystery surrounding Angine de Poitrine is arguably the most thrilling cultural export to emerge from Canada since David Cronenberg’s ‘The Shrouds.’ For years, the anonymous Québécois duo played in the shadows, but a single KEXP session at France’s Rennes Festival last winter turned them into an overnight, global obsession. Clad in monochromatic gear and bobbing paper-mâché masks, these self-proclaimed “space-time voyagers” are redefining math-rock with little more than a muffled drum kit and a microtonal guitar.
Their sudden ascent feels like a glitch in the modern music industry. None of their influences—ranging from 70s French zeuhl bands like Magma to the demented, herky-jerk art-punk of the 80s—are remotely fashionable. Yet, they are selling out tours in minutes, and even veteran analyst Rick Beato has felt compelled to address the “sensation” they’ve triggered. Watching them perform is a surreal experience; they look like they’ve wandered off the set of a Tim Burton film, but they sound like a high-precision, funk-metal machine.
With the release of *Vol. II*, the band finally gives studio polish to the songs that made them viral. Unlike the chaotic, leaping time signatures of bands like The Dillinger Escape Plan, Angine de Poitrine finds power in restraint. By utilizing a loop pedal as a phantom third member, they lock into a steady pulse, allowing them to build hypnotic rhythmic illusions atop a fixed meter. It is a calculated, almost mathematical display of tension and release.
Tracks like “Fabienk” and “Sarniezz” showcase their mastery of the 7/8 and 6/8 grids. They don’t just play time signatures; they twist them into strange, rhythmic polygons. When the duo—known only as Klek and Khn de Poitrine—hits a groove, the precision is startling, feeling less like a standard rock show and more like a feat of synchronized swimming.
They claim two decades of playing together, and you believe it the moment the music starts. There is a telekinetic quality to their interplay that is rarely captured on record. Whether they are the next big thing or just a beautiful, fleeting fluke, one thing is certain: they’ve managed to make the most inscrutable music on the planet impossible to ignore.