Traveling the incredible worlds of Angine de Poitrine, via Vol. II
By NICK TAVARES
STATIC and FEEDBACK Editor
If you’ve landed here searching for a snarky put-down of this particular band, which has rocketed to notoriety in the past month or so, feel free to move along. We don’t do that here.
I’m a bit of a skeptic, but I try not to approach things with too much detached irony, instead attempting to keep an open mind. I try to balance the urge to jump on a bandwagon with a bit of cautious apprehension, I guess.
But sometimes, I hear something and all inhibitions go out the window. And that’s how it’s been since I first landed on Angine de Poitrine. Since that time, the only thing swimming around my head are the strange machinations of their music, and I am not complaining.
This all times out nicely for the release of their second album, Vol. II, and man is it just a killer slice of whatever life this is supposed to be.
References and points of comparison fail me at times here. What could I point to? Captain Beefheart? Can, but somehow even less inhibited? Primus, in their more unhinged moments? King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, when they go especially deep on their microtonal journeys? Maybe that helps to paint a picture, but what has really grabbed me is that I keep catching myself humming along to this stuff, going “bop-boo-DUM-bobobop-boo-DUM” in my head the same way I would if “Penny Lane” had lodged itself in there.
This is all wild and infectious, and that’s only through the aural intake of it all. When diving further into the bizarre world they’ve constructed for themselves, taking in the costumes and the modified instruments and, if you’re really invested, listening to interviews where their alien language is translated back into French, it’s all immediately overwhelming and enthralling. The vibe created is, basically, “this is crazy. I’m in.”
It’s not, I must stress, all bleeps and boops and fiddling about. As Vol. II plays, and it is inevitable that this album will play on a loop for hours as it hooks itself in, the distinct melodies and patterns reveal, making each song distinct and the entire experience infectious.
Like most of the world, I discovered Angine de Poitrine after their appearance on KEXP, via Trans Musicales 2025 in France. Watching Khn de Poitrine manipulate that double-neck guitar/bass while controlling the pedal board and loopers with his toes was enough to give me brain freeze. Doing all of this while Klek de Poitrine is holding down an unreasonably tight groove on the drums, and the two of them totally in sync? Insanity.
And that’s how the record plays. All of these elements building on one another until, after 36 minutes or so, it’s time to give it all another spin. I’ve also gone back and listened to their debut Vol. I record, which is of course infectious and hypnotizing, but Vol. II does seem to take the earworms and insanity to new heights.
As playful and catch as the songs are, there’s always balance. There are basslines on here, as with “Utzp,” that just drive with a charge that can be as heavy and frantic as anything. The lead track “Fabienz” starts with an infectious groove, until everything suddenly drops out, leaving the bass and bass drum locked in robotic sync until an even more infectious groove blossoms out of it. It is almost hypnotizing to hear all these beats swirling around on headphones, and again, it can stay in my head for days.
So here we are, 2026 with summer approaching quickly, and these folks have come out of left field, or outer space, ou Canada français, or wherever ground-shattering bands like this come from. And with that may come a strange and bizarre a soundtrack for those warmer nights.
Maybe this is nothing more than a moment in time, a marker of a specific period where two people have descended from a spacecraft to deliver a microtonal barrage of beats and riffs to captivate the imaginations of so many. And in a few years, we’ll all look back and laugh.
Or maybe this is just really good and really cool and original. And maybe we should all just accept this, without cynicism, and enjoy the grooves.
E-mail Nick Tavares at nick@staticandfeedback.com