DINS O CUOL

Hooray. POIL have overturned the establish soundscape of avantgarde progressive. They claimed they'd got quite influenced by Zappa or several classic artists like Chopin or Stravinsky, and an adviser from moviedom Chaplin, and we can enjoy their cinema show here as they say.

The first "Tronche À Cul" sounds like Zappa meets Zeuhl Emperor Magma and a Japanese post-punk bizarre Aburadako. Firstly felt we could dance to their songs (but actually cannot lol) ... guess their pop, punksy atmosphere with experimental complexity (too tough for us to follow completely!) should remind us something like danceable grooves. Their "Zeuhl-ish" mysterious words are funky, funny, which should be just suitable for their punky basal sounds. All stuffs sound very cynical but very addictive for us, whilst we feel innovative call via their magical soundscape off the top of our head.

The following track "Trouille Cosmique" can exactly be called as a musical vertigo, let me say. Frequent kaleidoscopic development with colourful sounds is very attractive and allusive to their explosive ideas. Sometimes launch RIO-ish funky scratches like Zamla Mammaz Manna, and sometimes heavy, swift sound sandwiches with delirious synthesizer machine-gun shoots like Yes or EL&P ... such a theatrical melody hotchpotch with eccentricity, versatility definitely delivers a decisive addiction that makes us happy and pleasant. Really cannot help feeling they could play strictly on stage (of course believe they can do!).

Third track (and a masterpiece in this album?) "Dins O Cuol" ... the title is something nasty and dirty, with their crazy intelligence ... And hey, the intelligence can be heard here there and everywhere in this stuff, where are flooded with mischievous sounds and jokey voices liable to launch not seriousness but sound malformation to us. Interesting though. In the last "Les Vilain Mandarin" (the latter part sounds like their kitty play btw) we can feel their magnificent sound-seasoned outrage. Yeah outrageous indeed. As the title says, they might uglify "typical" avantgarde rock opera, with scattered percussive passion. Quite fit for singing about "the exit or the entrance of your a*****e" and their music lifestyle itself.

A distorted phantasie created by POIL. Anyway, they've played on stage of FREAKSHOW (in Wurzburg) with my best friend band Djamra in September 2013 ... wish I could have attended this show and got immersed in their soundscape indeed.

'Dins O cuol' - PoiL (59/100)

If there was any other band out there today I might compare PoiL to, it would be miRthkon. Like those loveable avant-prog banana afficionados, PoiL virtually defy conventional definitions of genre. Yet, in spite of this avant-leaning weirdness, they come from a very firm musical tradition, in this case being the 'RIO' or Rock In Opposition movement. Zappa-esque swirling instrumentation and whimsy are bolstered with an impressive knowledge and application of modern classical trends. The wacky approach on Dins O cuol serves them well for the most part and suggests this French trio has a ton of weirdly compelling potential, although a lack of structure and misguided sense of humour sometimes makes their second album more of a test of listening endurance than anything.

Although the weird, manic approach should come as no surprise to veterans of avant and other 'forward-thinking' progressive rock, PoiL's music doesn't tend to make sense. Listening to the album and the way they've structured the music, I get the impression it isn't meant to. Logic and convention is thrown out the door for the most part, and with the notable exception of "Trouille Cosmique" (which offers a semblance of catchiness and form), PoiL's songwriting unfolds rhapsodically. It's worthy of mention that PoiL don't make use of an electric guitar. A rock-based energy is PoiL's lifeblood, but it's the keyboard orchestrations of Antoine Arnera that delivers most of the band's clear 'ideas'. For a keyboardist, Arnera's playing is incredibly dissonant and biting, which might have better showcased the band's neoclassical influence, had the music not felt so whimsical and silly. Boris Cassone's bass work is less pronounced, but arguably more consistent. Guilhem Meier's drumming is actually the aspect of PoiL's sound that has impressed me the most; especially during the music's most chaotic moments, it sounds like he's tapping into a semi-permanent free jazz fill- almost certainly overwhelming to accustomed ears, but brilliant if heard with ears experienced in this sort of music.

Despite my reservations towards Dins O cuol, I can't call their instrumentation anything short of excellent. Ultimately, most of the gripes I have towards the performance are aimed towards the vocals, an element of their sound contributed to by all three members. 'Weird' vocals often tread the border between being exciting and tasteless; for PoiL the vocals all-too often fall in the latter category. The wacky sprechsegang and kitschy screams of Mike Patton come first to mind, and even in his case, I wasn't always into his jarring vocal experiments. For PoiL, I'm generally left feeling like the vocals (and some of their musical choices) have been orchestrated purely for the sake of bad humour. For all their musical sophistication and intelligence, PoiL have an atrociously bad sense of humour. Their cartoonish music video for "Trouille Cosmique" was pretty cute and the callow jest has generally worked for Zappa, Devin Townsend and PoiL's own contemporaries in miRthkon. In PoiL's case, the whimsical vibe compliments sections of the album, but far too often it falls somewhere between being puzzling and outright disgusting. The worst offender in this case is "Vilain Manderin", not the song so much, but the 'bonus' ten minutes that follows. The sampling of bodily functions, irritating vocalizations and half-baked 'scat' warbling is frankly nauseating. Don't get me wrong- I'm not prudish about gross humour in the slightest (I myself once recorded an album entitled Recordungs!) but when the joke overshadows the 'musical' elements, it becomes impossible to tolerate. Even if I was impressed by the actual musicianship, the extended outro kills the enthusiasm I would have had for it after it ended. Then again, there are people out there who like Zappa's Lumpy Gravy and Mike Patton's Adult Themes for Voice, so don't take my word for it.

There's some potentially great avant-prog on Dins O cuol, but it comes with the requirement of wading through some [&*!#] to get to it. PoiL could be brilliant, and in some ways they already are. At the very least, the fact that they've been able to both amaze and disgust me within the same forty minute period is something any avant-leaning band could be proud of.

Having crafted one of the world's most bizarre lounge jazz albums that tossed aside the rule books and crafted slinky Chopin-esque classical chops into jazz-infused chamber rock dressed up with punk energy and Zappa fueled antics, POIL continued their legacy of hyperactive zany and unhinged musical madness that has been one of the prime movers of the new strain of avant-prog taking root in 21st century France. This Lyon based trio has become quite the live act finding their way onto the Rock In Opposition festival in Carmaux, France where they shared the stage with likes of Soft Machine Legacy, Faust, Univers Zero, Present, miRthkon, and Guapo. Not bad for a crazy trio that's one step away from the looney bin.

For a sophomore performance POIL unleashed the equally bizarre DINS O CUOL (uh, in the ass?) which finds the trio in less of a Chopin goes to the lounge jazz mode but rather a let's create the most frenetically wild avant-prog possible music! And with that they succeed. While a much shorter album than the debut "L'Ire Des Papes," DINS O CUOL nevertheless packs enough of a punch to detonate a warehouse of fireworks. Fronted by the charismatic piano wizard Antoine Amera, his piano rolls still dominate the soundscape but this time around the other members step up to add equal doses of instrumental explorations. Boris Cassone is just as spastic on bass and Guilhem Meier once again bedazzles with percussive drives that baffle the mind. Suspiciously absent are any guitar sounds.

POIL is in a much more playful mood on DINS O CUOL. While they exercised their famous vocal antics on their debut where they sing, harmonize, chant, grunt, scream, shout and get all weird on ya, on this sophomore album the vocal charm really lets loose and becomes the dominate force which drags the music along. Humorous design is the name of this game and every whacky utterance seems to be geared towards a 21st century slapstick comedic routine that evokes the Charlie Chaplin influences that offer a zany cartoonish mood that finds itself focused through a complex progressively infused rock that tackles chamber rock, math rock and avant-prog in time signature rich workouts. In fact, at times this sounds like an avant-prog version of Oingo Boingo.

Guaranteed to raise the dead, POIL goes for the avant-prog jugular on DINS O CUOL with incessantly brutal prog keyboard antics, zolo infused herky-jerky spastic deliveries, vocals freakiness so weird that even the Samla Mammas Manna would blush in response. Zappa would roll over in his grave if he could hear this and those who aren't inclined to experience music that is designed to aggravate and stimulate like a million doses of caffeine are bound to be quite irritated by this music. To call this adventurous would be an understatement and it's truthfully quite unlike anything i've ever experienced. DINS O CUOL erases any pleasantries of the debut and adds heavy doses of abrasiveness in every corner.

Just check out the ending of the title track where the groove is set on some sort of avant-disco beat only with abrasive dissonance and million-mile-per-second time sig changes on steroids. Oh, this is indeed the stuff avant-prog dreams are made of. Perched somewhere between the confines of "L'ire Des Papes" and the more compositional brilliant "Brossaklitt," DINS O CUOL is quite the interesting plunge into the bizarre, the humorous all wrapped up in brutal prog dressing. This is a ruthless type of parade of sounds that offers rewards for those who can hang with it and punishment for those unwilling souls who happened to fall into its gravitational force.

I'm on the love it side of the equation but be warned that this music contains some seriously demented musical trips that are reserved for only the hardcore crowds out there who love their avant-prog with a punk infused energy that is steeped in unrelenting time signature attacks. Stick around for the ending of the album. The fourth track seemingly ends around the nine minute mark but endure some silence and you are treated to a most bizarre series of sounds that include Zen meditative sounds as well as LOTS of belching sounds! That is only one surprise to be experienced for those patient enough to wait. Sophisticated potty music is what we have here! Yay!!!!