Music fans and critics, in their never-ending quest to make a place for everyone and put everyone in their place, have conjured out of thin air so many meaningless sub-genres that the world might indeed collapse under the weight. You can fool most people into thinking you’re an expert on music by following the same tried-and-true formula: take a style of music, say rock, and add any number of modifiers that don’t have anything to do with music. Hence the creation of trip-hop, acid jazz, speed garage, digital hardcore, post-post-rock (especially tricky, that) and the subject of today’s post, math rock.

What the hell is math rock? No one knows what the real defining characteristics are, since most sub-genres are coined by reviewers who want an easy shorthand to refer to a couple of similar-sounding bands without getting into why they sound similar. Admittedly, describing how one band sounds, let alone how two bands sound similar, is difficult. Lemme give it a shot with Polvo: odd melodies in unorthodox keys and strange rhythmic phrasing. And a bit of Eastern influence, sort of. That’s about as good an explanation you’d ever get for math rock, and as a description of Polvo, it’s adequate. But hey, that’s why you have ears, right?

I will guarantee you this, though; if you’ve never heard of math rock, chances are you’ve never heard anything quite like this, either. Today’s Active Lifestyles will open up a whole host of musical possibilities you’d never considered before, and you’ll come away thinking you didn’t know rock music could sound like this. Or maybe that’s just me.