Angine de Poitrine: polka dot costumes and crazy, edgy rock

“Authenticity. In a world where every rough edge is smoothed out to please the general public, nothing is more authentic than bizarre and edgy music, imbued with irreverent madness and with a subtle streak of aggression, all presented in extravagant costumes”.
It’s not the phrase of a music critic or some important newspaper, but an anonymous comment on Reddit. I noted it because it captures the point of one of the most interesting bands of this period: Angine de Poitrine. A duo from Quebec who plays menacing, crazy rock, wearing equally absurd costumes, made of polka-dotted clothes and gigantic masks. They play only two instruments, or rather three: the drums and a bass fused with a modified and microtonal guitar, which allows you to have a unique sound to create phrases to loop with a pedalboard for unconventional sound structures.

What is authenticity?

I am not so convinced that authenticity is a real term of judgment for artists: I believe that, essentially, it does not exist in pop music, even if it is often invoked to give value to an artist, as if it corresponded to a form of artistic truth that in reality does not exist. There are musical projects, stories, characters and communication choices; they are always there even when the artists present themselves in the simplest and most direct way possible. Precisely for this reason, in an era in which all artists are in some way characters, we might as well take this choice to the extreme and transform it into an artistic proposal.
In the case of Angine de Poitrine it works. Not because – or not only because – there are funny costumes, but because there is interesting music behind it.
The combination of these factors has made the band viral on social media: the release of the second album “Vol. 2” in April is in sight, preceded by a couple of “singles” (obligatory quotation marks) and a phenomenal performance for the American radio KEXP, which has been widely circulated. Get an idea.

A statement of intent

The name of the band itself is already a declaration of intent. “Angine de Poitrine” is the French expression for angina pectoris, chest pain caused by an insufficient flow of blood and oxygen to the heart. An image that suits a music made of tension, broken rhythms, sharp guitars. Angine de Poitrin recover Television, Primus, early Franz Ferdinand and what was called math-rock; among their influences they cite both progressive music and Gentle Giant as well as Dua Lipa: everything comes together in such an absurd way that it’s interesting.

Aliens from Quebec

Behind the black and white polka dot costumes and the papier-mâché masks that completely hide the face there are two Quebec musicians from the Saguenay area: a guitarist and loop manipulator who calls himself Khn and a drummer known as Klek.
Anonymity and masks are nothing new, but here too they are part of the project and were born by chance: they used them to play twice in the same period in the same place, presenting themselves as a completely different band.

The duo’s first album, “Vol. 1”, was released in 2024. The second, “Vol. 2”, will arrive on April 3: in an interview they say that they didn’t expect all the attention generated by the performance video for KEXP, and the result is that the band signed with an international booking agency. You’ll find them at major Western festivals next summer and there’s a tour in Europe (no Italy, for now).

Which brings us back to the starting point: you can discuss as much as you want about authenticity, customs, masks and the alien language they sometimes speak. But if Angine de Poitrine is really conquering the public and curiosity, it’s not because they’re strange, and not just that. It’s because underneath that strangeness there is a band that sounds different from everything you hear around today, outside of conventions.
In this case, yes, they are aliens.