Release Date: October 17th 2025. Record Label: Self Released. Formats: Cassette/Digital
Bear The Torch - Tracklisting
Terminally Regressed - (2:24)
The Unicorn - (4:23)
Jagannath - (6:22)
Your Setting Suns - (8:15)
Division Helmet - (4:59)
Celestial Hues - (15:08)
Members
Eric Euler (Guitar)
Matt Medvesky (Bass)
Dan Duff (Drums)
Review
Bear The Torch is the third full length album from Progressive Stoner Metallers The Isosceles Project which is also their first release since 2012. The band received some minor critical acclaim back in the day with their first two albums before going on indefinite hiatus back in 2012. The band play an instrumental style of Prog Metal which branches into areas of Psych, Post-Rock, Doom, Sludge and Post-Metal which adds a twisted level of Jazz and Fusion Rock along the way.
Think Pelican, Mastodon, CAVE-IN, REZN and The Mars Volta have one supergroup extended jamming session and you’re almost there with the music they create on this record alone. Everything does feel out of place at times when you first listen to this with The Isosceles Project projecting a loose and free narrative which manifests into different places on the whole album. Screeching sound effects are added for good measure with that MASTODON influence being heard quite a lot within the first half of the album.
The opening two songs as Terminally Regressed and The Unicorn allows The Isosceles Project to play a stunning and fast-paced blend of freakish and heavy psych based grooves with a backdrop of sludgy beats moving the record to its next exciting chapter. The album really starts cooking and bringing the freshest sounds within the next two tracks of Jagannath and Your Setting Suns fully exploding into a vibrant Space Rock atmosphere with bursts of melodic energy.
This sound can be quite choppy, intense and very direct but all done for the best reasons possible with The Isosceles Project levelling the play field for BIGGER, HEAVIER and THRILLING instrumental passages to punish your AUDIO senses with. I admire how The Isosceles Project always allow themselves to go slightly off script for spellbinding and highly unconventional sounds that dare to be quite different on the final two tracks of Division Helmets and Celestial Hues where a prominent Grunge and Shoegaze identity forms which should appeal to fans of the legendary HUM.
Bear The Torch is not your standard Instrumental Stoner Metal record as The Isosceles Project dare to be different and inject their own creative personality into the mix which allows their music to be more emotionally powerful and superbly grounded than you initially realize.
This is outstanding stuff from beginning to end that’s topped up by excellent production values that will have no trouble finding a dedicated following and cult audience within the underground scene.
Words by Steve Howe
Links
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