Math Rock
Math rock is a complex, mostly guitar-based style of indie rock built on odd time signatures, sudden stops and starts, and intricate interlocking parts.
It emerged in the United States in the late 1980s and 1990s from post-hardcore and progressive rock. Guitarists often use finger tapping and loop pedals, drummers drive the music with complex, shifting rhythms, and vocals are secondary or missing entirely. The name refers to this rhythmic complexity, which listeners and critics heard as mathematical. It later developed a strong scene in Japan and overlaps with Midwest emo.
Artists it is known for: Don Caballero, Battles, toe.
- Family
- Alternative & Indie
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- United States, late 1980s
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 6%
About 4,800 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have math rock among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Math Rock artists
Modern Baseball
Mom Jeans.
Dance Gavin Dance
bunii
American Football
rumahsakit
Hail The Sun
MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS
Tigers Jaw
Polyphia
The math rock artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.