By Jase Walker

Poster for Poly-Math @ Satan's Hollow, November 2022Satan’s Hollow is definitely one of the more bizarre places in Manchester for a show but I’m not one to spurn a venue, especially when a band like Poly-Math is on. For tonight’s show they’ve got bands I know quite well in support, local act Civil Service and local-ish act Archetype. With their new album ‘Zenith’ Poly-Math’s two acts in support are most definitely in the same vein of leftfield rock and metal but couldn’t be further in terms of actual sound: Civil Service fitting into post-rock and Archetype fitting into more Rush-esque prog metal.

First off right after doors is Civil Service, a band whom I’ve seen do their stuff live three times this year and gotten to know quite well. The first thing I notice after they kick off is they’re doing nicely filling out Satan’s Hollow with their large atmospheric sound which is a pretty solid achievement in itself. Lots of tremolo picking as you’d expect with post-rock; I mean Explosions In The Sky kind of wrote the rulebook on this.

Civil Service are doing a bang up job of projecting their sound properly in Satan’s Hollow, it’s sounding full and thick and surrounds me like a blanket but isn’t muffled which is great. It’s quite amusing that following the first second, they announce that the second song is in fact their last, but considering their songs are pretty damn long it’s not really surprising. It’s quite a journey overall, extended segments with reverb heavy guitar playing while the drums and bass keep the pulse of the song going, lovely stuff from the Civil Service guys once again!

Next up tonight in Archetype and they’ve told me their bass player couldn’t make it tonight but they’ve opted to not bring a backing track tonight which is a little bit odd but let’s roll with it anyway! It would appear they’ve whacked up the bass frequencies on the guitar to carry the sound a bit but it still falls a bit short of having the full grunt of the music. It’s clearly not deterred the band from carrying on and going for it as much as they would normally mind.

Anyway as we press on, despite the lack of the bass player, we’ve still got all the tasty guitar playing and drumming that jumps from tasty grooves to full on aggression which is essentially what Archetype do in a nutshell. Jonny on guitar is more than happy to keep the focus on himself walking around the stage while kicking his busy guitar riffs out, periodically gurning at the audience in the meantime.

Admittedly Satan’s hasn’t really had a great turnout so far tonight which is a bit disappointing, although midweek gigs at the month end usually seem to turn out that way anyway. Archetype finish on a song they’ve never played live (outside of Wales anyway) which compared to a large chunk of their stuff actually sounds much more math rock aligned for the most part! Still a solid performance as a two-piece but I do miss having that bassy grunt there.

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Speeding through the setups, we’ve now got Poly-Math. These guys have been a firm favourite of mine since seeing them at the Peer Hat in Manchester so I’m excited to see how they play out Satan’s Hollow. It’s definitely a good sign that the bass sounds solid and chunky and the backing synths come across as thick in a venue like Satan’s. Poly-Math’s strength lies firmly in creating layered music, with a sax and live synths their sound can go anything from odd rhythms to fully discordant noise at a drop of a hat and they lean into that a lot, especially with the new material from ‘Zenith‘. Seeing their guitarist and saxophonist doing dual melodies as well is fantastic to watch, especially when the rest of the band is going mental at the same time!

I really do love how Poly-Math uses the sax often as the primary melody driver on a lot of their stuff, it’s such an interesting clash of rhythm, busy guitar playing and keys layering that it gets so many chances to sing over the top of the overall cacophony. There’s so many bizarre little influences that pop up throughout their set, some parts may as well be old ska, some swing, some big band parts, it all makes for a very interesting sound that keeps you guessing all the way through the live set. You can have more relaxed parts that suddenly jump into crazy intense bits with chaotic rhythms that are a full assault on the senses, it’s extremely varied and this set so far is no different.

The new stuff from ‘Zenith‘ sounds fantastic though. There’s such a wildly varied mix of stuff in each of the songs they’ve played, from the ambient to the downright outrageously noisy and seeing Poly-Math really explore the fringes of their sonic ability is wonderful to witness live.

I can add another band to the list of “bands that sounded great at Satan’s Hollow”,. That’s two this year now. Excellent.