It’s one of the big talking points of 2026 – where you stand on Angine De Poitrine is increasingly a question every musician working in guitar rock has to have an opinion on.
And in the ongoing debate, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson of Rush have come out firmly in support of their fellow Canadians.
Interviewed on Chile’s Radio Futuro about their current 50 Something tour, conversation soon got round to their polka-dotted countrymen: “Well, I think they’re fantastic,” said Lee. “I love the fact that they’ve gone viral, because they’re so unusual, peculiar, idiosyncratic. It’s a sound that no one’s heard before. They’ve taken Primus and a bit of Rush and all the complexities and sort of boiled it down to a two-piece band using an incredible array of technology.”
“That’s the most entertaining and exhilarating bits of music that I’ve heard for a long, long time. And I think most people that hear them find it somehow infectious, and I don’t mean that like it’s poisonous. I mean good infectious.”
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Meanwhile Alex Lifeson saluted the duo’s musicianship, saying: “There’s something very hypnotic about their arrangements and how they write, how they present the music. You know, using the looping pedals to create a bass line, and then guitar lines over it, and keep building on it. And above all, they’re just great players. They really play their instruments so well, and that whole microtonal approach just makes it sound so exotic, and and just mesmerising.”
Lee then chipped in with: “And the drummer has a bigger nose than me, so I love it.”
Many others have been equally effusive. In an interview earlier this year Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy said of them: “This is what I imagine the future of music sounds like.” Meanwhile, Dave Grohl said that the duo, “absolutely blew my fucking mind”.
Not everyone has been so positive. One naysayer has been Canadian guitarist Devin Townsend, who has taken issue with Angine’s costumes. “This makes me crazy, because it’s ‘the mask thing’,” Townsend told interviewer Jorge Botas. “It’s like, he’s got a big polka dot nose, and so everybody really likes it. I mean, the music’s really cool, right?”
“But because of the image, I find that very difficult. For me, it’s difficult, because I just think image in general is really…I gotta choose my words properly here. But would they have that same attention if they weren’t wearing big clown noses?”
