Beh beh! Hi everyone, Behthony Bethtano here, the Internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Angine de Poitrine album Vol. II.

This is a brand new record from this Quebec, Canada rock duo, and there are few things that honestly I am more excited to talk about this month, mostly because the Poitrine takeover has truly begun, thanks to a recent KEXP performance and a few other live and interview clips from these guys, just going absolutely bonkers on the Internet, to the point where they are nearly inescapable.

Despite the fact that these guys are mostly an instrumental progressive and psych rock band, their appeal is proving to be much further and wider than your average artist in that field. Chalk it up to how well they play together, the music itself or, y'know, their visual gimmick. But for whatever reason, I see all the time, like, loads of normie teenagers dancing to numerous songs from these guys, certainly more than I'm seeing of them jammin' to BTS or, like, the recent Harry Styles. And I dunno, I think that's sayin' somethin'.

And as Vol. II here suggests, this is the second album from the duo following their 2024 debut, which I admittedly missed, though I think most people did. But going into this new record here, I was mostly interested in, in kind of gaging the hype and seeing how the music measured up. And I was also kind of wondering if a studio record from the duo would reveal another side of themselves, their sound, the weird little world-building exercise they seem to be engaged in, though it mostly seems to kind of exist just for them to stay anonymous.

But given that this record is seemingly independently released, and how quickly the duo dropped it following their kind of viral blowup here, it's highly likely this record here was already in the can or mostly, mostly done, and then they managed to blow up while getting out there and performing, promoting their music.

But actually sitting down and listening to the record, did it blow me away? No, not necessarily. But I do think what Poitrine does here is good enough to meet the moment and hopefully bring fans potentially into a space where they are being appreciated for their sound as much as they are their visuals and, you know, the papier-mâché costumes. In a way, what these guys are doing kind of reminds me of a lot of, like, weird and experimental rock and rock-adjacent duos and groups that sometimes were costumed or quite theatrical in their presentation that were all over the indie scene in the 2000s. Be it either a Lightning Bolt or The Locust, even Sunn O))) maybe to a degree, who just dropped an album. Oh, and I should mention Hella. Hella!

However, those acts are far, much more influenced by noise and experimental rock, straight up. Meanwhile, what Poitrine does on this project makes much more sense in a modern rock landscape that sees bands like Khruangbin essentially being kind of the, you know, modern instrumental rock rule of thumb, with of course King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard being every alt teenager's gateway into microtonal music.

So, as weird and as avant-garde as Angine de Poitrine looks on the surface, I actually think their music has a surprising amount of crossover appeal with a lot of touring, working music acts out there today. And if there is anything making them a tad bit different, it's their clear prog and math rock influences, which manifest not only in some pretty gnarly solos but also a lot of interesting grooves that are either oddly timed or segmented in some interesting and surprising ways across the lengthy and multi-phased songs on this album, which gives these tracks sense of variety but also familiarity, because it allows the duo to provide a lot of variation on a certain musical idea or lick or riff without having to compose totally different sections within each song every time.

So, you know, you kind of like bombard the listener with a series of twists on the same musical mode or melody, which is a strength and a weakness of this record, because while it does make the six jams on this record pretty hypnotic and immersive, sometimes the repetition can be a bit daunting, especially in the second half of the track "Sarniezz." Like, just because you're layering a bunch of different guitar lines on top of each other, that doesn't necessarily mean they're complementary or that they provide any interesting sort of interplay.

So yeah, sometimes the very basic overdubbed guitar layers and ultra-dry mixes on this record are not enough to keep this thing thrilling from start to finish. And in the grander scheme of things, given the way the band presents themselves and the discourse around their music, I was kinda hoping for something a little more out there. I mean, for sure, the playing is tight throughout this project, but come on. It's not like the Eastern Bloc and Turkish musical scales that are all over this album are like an altogether new thing, especially within modern underground rock music. Like, even the band Altın Gün has a new record out this year. I

n a lot of ways, while the music isn't bad, I do see Poitrine as pretty much doing a silly presentation to launder musical ideas that maybe more narrow-minded people people wouldn't necessarily be open to in other contexts. Like the song "Utzp," for example. It's basically a fucking polka that doesn't want you to think it's a polka. Think a song Gogol Bordello would drop back in the day, but with like a kind of a metal-influenced finish. Or any number of John Zorn records over the years, where he's kind of putting together elements of experimental rock, prog rock, and klezmer.

Don't take my aggravation and annoyance here as having anything specifically to do with the band or the music itself. It doesn't. It's just a little disheartening to find that the most truly distinct and recognizable thing about what these guys are doing is just how they're dressed.

Still, at least half of the songs on this record are very good and killer examples of these guys just jamming their nuts off. But as they push things forward, I guess my one wish for what they're doing is to find more ways to work elements of effects or color or texture into their work, as the moments on this LP where you do hear some, like, very weird and almost alien guitar tones, those are pretty entertaining. I also hope the next record could possibly sound a little bit more live. Them being a duo does allow them a lot of improvisational freedom, which I hope they kind of like take the lead with into the future. Like, they don't have to merely limit themselves to what a band of five guys sounds like, who have to sort of like play together in a sensible way in order for it to come across, I guess, legible.

Still, with all that being said, the intro track on here is great. "Utzp," that I mentioned earlier, that has the polka vibes, is definitely a highlight too. And then my third favorite being "Yor Zarad," which is maybe the most original sounding moment on the record. Not only does it feel like these guys are kind of pushing those Anatolian rock influences to a really freaky edge, but then also in the very last leg we have some very much Residents-type licks popping up with a jump-the-fuck-up metal finish. And as cool as that cross-section of sounds are, I would bet my two balls that most people finding out about this band on TikTok have not heard a Residents album all the way through.

Still, with that being said, though this is not their first album, I do think this record is a very good introduction to Angine de Poitrine, and I'm hoping now that they have gotten this huge amount of exposure with a successful album launch off the back of it, they can tour, get out there, show more people what they've got, and hopefully circle back around with a record that feels a little bit more full, less skeletal in terms of its sound, its layers, its influences. Which is why I'm feeling a light to decent 7 on this one.

Anthony Fantano, Vol II.. Forever.