Math rock is a rhythmically complex, guitar-based style of experimental rock music that emerged in the late 1980s. It is characterized by complex, atypical rhythmic structures (including irregular stopping and starting), angular melodies, and dissonant chords. Math rock shares its place of origin in the late 80s underground music scene of the American Midwest and surroundings with post-rock.

Some earlier bands have characteristics of both math rock and post-rock, using instruments for textures rather than melodies and riffs, featuring atypical rhythms and some dissonance. The genres soon diverged: math rock concentrated on angular melodies, atypical time signatures, start-stop rhythms, and dissonance, while staying closer to rock music in sound and instrumentation. Post-rock, on the other hand, concentrated on heavy use of dynamics, creating soundscapes, and expanded the variety of instruments used, used a jazzier drumming style, and incorporated elements of shoegaze music.

Whereas most rock music uses a basic 4/4 meter (however accented or syncopated), math rock frequently uses asymmetrical time signatures such as 7/8, 11/8, or 13/8, or features constantly changing meters based on various groupings of 2 and 3. This rhythmic complexity, seen as "mathematical" in character by many listeners and critics, is what gives the genre its name.[citation needed] Musically, math rock derives from other rock genres, including rock, heavy metal, progressive rock, and punk rock.

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