Brighton’s supremely talented experimental outfit Poly-Math have been criminally under-celebrated for as long as we can remember. Sure, maybe the band’s blackened progressive math rock isn’t for everyone, but ever since we heard Reptiles in 2015, we’ve been hypnotized by their unapologetic swagger. You can even see part of one of our write-ups in the Bandcamp bio for the followup to that record, Melancolia, one of our favorites to this day.
After a smattering of smoking EP’s, the band released House of Wisdom / We are the Devil in 2018, a winding epic of flat-out transcendental proportions not dissimilar to The Mars Volta‘s Deloused in the Comatorium. But it dropped at an odd time when attention spans were rapidly shrinking by design, and sadly a lot of people haven’t fully immersed themselves in it. Do that here now if you haven’t.
Poly-Math continued to grow despite the trends thankfully, even releasing a new single the next year with a new member, keyboardist Josh Gesner. Even during the pandemic, the band put out a double album in the form of The Cadaver Tomb parts one and two. 2022’s Zenith even saw the band write as a five-piece with a saxophone player, again astral traveling past any preconceived notions of what the band could do. Nowadays, we know the band is working on a new album due in 2026, but here, today, we are still celebrating their brand new EP The Halting Problem.
What we love about this EP is that it seems to be a challenge ordered from the band, to the band. But you wouldn’t necessarily know that at first – check out the Bandcamp summary:
“The Halting Problem EP was originally a selection of short drum loops recorded in between takes during the recording sessions for Poly-Math’s 2026 album, Something Deeply Hidden. Each loop was later arranged into a complete piece of music. To help add dynamics and range to the EP, a comprehensive range of percussion was added, shaping the sound and feel of the The Halting Problem and marking a new direction in Poly-math’s sound.
The Halting Problem is more experimental than most Poly-Math records. There is a greater focus on improvisational solos, and in general each track explores each motif to a fuller degree, creating longer more sprawling pieces than the band would normally write.”
So in a way, the members of Poly-Math got to have more fun in less time with this one, resulting in something different, something snappy-er compared to grandiosity they’ve achieved thus far, even considering it’s just two stretched out tracks. It harkens back to the high-brow greatness of those first few EP’s too, it just feels less bound by a particular concepts it can play with more texture and space. As “Mean Reversion” comes to a close, you can’t help but hear a menacing majesty in layers of synths, percussion, and discordant guitars, and at this point we can hardly wait for Something Deeply Hidden.
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