Poly-Math – Something Deeply Hidden
Release Date: 10th April 2026
Label: The Lasers Edge
Bandcamp
Genre: Instrumental, Prog Rock, Post-Rock, Mathrock.
FFO: The Mars Volta, King Crimson, Battles, Physics House Band.
Review By: John Newlands
It’s been four years since instrumental prog / math-rock outfit Poly-Math released their previous album Zenith, which also served as my introduction to the band. In that time, anticipation has quietly built, and Something Deeply Hidden proves to be well worth the wait. With this new release, Poly-Math return to a quintet, having dropped the saxophone player featured on Zenith. Rather than feeling like a loss, the leaner line-up sharpens the band’s focus, allowing their sound to feel more direct and deliberate.
Something Deeply Hidden sees the band leaning further into their strengths – intricate instrumentation, dense polyrhythms, and a new emphasis on expansive percussion and improvisation. There is a heightened sense of movement and pace throughout the entirety of the album. Once can notice how rhythms interlock, fracture, and realign, while layers of guitars and synths lines constantly evolve rather than settle or lean into repetition.
It’s also hard not to notice the strong sci-fi character baked into this release. Synthesiser textures and guitar effects at points adopt stuttering, glitch-like forms, giving the record an electronic, robotic, and distinctly futuristic aesthetic. This thematic direction is reinforced by the album title itself which is possibly a nod to Sean M. Carroll’s book Something Deeply Hidden, which explores quantum mechanics and the many-worlds theory.
That conceptual thread continues through track titles such as One/Two/Three/Four Body Problem, Euthyphro Dilemma, and Terror Management Theory, all of which reference scientific theories, philosophical problems, or ideas in human behavioural psychology. Whether intentional or not, these references give the album an added sense of intellectual curiosity, depth and context, which can prove difficult on an instrumental release.
From opening track The Universe As An Engine, the tone is set immediately. There is an urgency and forward momentum that carries across the entire album. Songs rarely linger too long in one place, they surge forward driven by constantly shifting rhythmic ideas and tension. Nothing feels off limits. Crushing, angular riffs collide with jazz-inflected flourishes, complex bass lines, tribal-inspired percussion, and spacious, otherworldly synth passages. The band move effortlessly between moments of brute force and complex atmosphere, often within the same track.
At various points, Something Deeply Hidden recalled The Mars Volta’s 2005 release Frances the Mute (albeit without vocals). The extended improvisational passages and free-form structures create an exhilarating sense of chaos, like a train threatening to leave the rails while somehow staying intact which can create for a thrilling experience. I can however imagine that the density, chaos and complexity of the music could be ‘too much’ for some listeners, almost like sensory overload!
The level of musicianship on display here is exceptional. Every member of Poly-Math plays with confidence and even at the album’s most frantic moments it’s clear these are musicians are masters of their instruments, pushing complexity and the boundaries of what they can do.
Production is equally impressive. Every instrument sits clearly in the mix, with ample space allowing even the densest sections to breathe. This clarity is crucial for an album this rhythmically and texturally complex and helps to ensure the listener can fully appreciate what’s happening beneath the surface.
Perhaps most impressively, Poly-Math continue to evolve their sound while retaining a core identity that still feels unmistakably theirs. Instrumental albums around the 40-minute mark can sometimes struggle with pacing or repetition, but none of those issues arise here. Something Deeply Hidden flies past with the intensity of a meteor tearing through Earth’s atmosphere, fast, brilliant, and leaving a lasting impact.
(4.5 / 5)
