Here's one of Eden's Certified Tips For a Better Life - every year, take a chance on at least five albums. By which I mean press play on something from a band you've never heard of before. Of course I live my own principles and exceed them; I do this for way more than five albums. Every year, I am rewarded for it again and again as I find excellent music that makes my life better. One such case this year is Maebe's Brain Paint. It belongs in one of my favorite "micro-genres", which is the sort bright, explosive, instrumental, heavy math-rock that they like to make down in the south of the UK (Maebe are from, surprising no one, the wonderfully exuberant Bristol). I've been spending a lot of time with this release over the past few weeks and so I was overjoyed when the band reached out to me with some writing breaking down their influences.
Even more delightful, they've decided to dedicate the space to purely instrumental bands, highlighting some of my favorite from the genre (shout-out AMTP and Jettison) and offering a fresh, intriguing perspective on them. Therefore, without further ado, here are some of the influences that make Maebe tick, as written by Michael Astley-Brown who is one of three (yes) guitarists in the band. Let's go!
You know what’s kind of strange? Most of Maebe’s primary influences all have singers. But there are a ton of instrumental bands who have made their mark – some of whom encouraged me to make music without vocals in the first place.
This is my list of post-rock/math-rock/prog artists who have no vocalists, but most definitely have their own voice. We’ve pinched ideas from all of them.
Mogwai
As far as I’m concerned, Mogwai are the greatest instrumental rock band of all time. They were the first band to make me realise that, yes, you can make rock music that’s heavy and emotional without vocals. I started with Young Team, but Government Commissions – their compilation of live BBC Sessions – was what made me fall madly in love with the band. The versions of "New Paths to Helicon", parts I and II, on that record are perfect post-rock.
I don’t think Mogwai get enough credit for the diversity of their output. Yes, they were one of the pioneers of the tremolo-picking delay sound, but their catalog reaches in so many different directions. Stuart Braithwaite is a really cool lead player, too – his solos on "How to Be a Werewolf" are crazy bagpipes-meet-guitar-fuzz euphoria. They are absolute masters of their craft and one of the best live bands on the planet.
And So I Watch You From Afar
We pride ourselves on being as diverse as possible, but ASIWYFA are an inescapable reference point for Maebe. In fact, I initially rejected our album opener "Brain Paint" for sounding too much like that band. Then I transposed the main riff to a baritone guitar and that took it in a different direction. Hopefully I got away with it…
But goddamn, the energy that this band puts out is electrifying. And, most importantly, their songs are seriously catchy. For me, peak ASIWYFA is Gangs and the Letters EP. Some of those riffs just go off – especially the middle section in "Gang (starting never stopping)". Pure fire. But Jettison, that orchestral record they put out in 2022, is one of their most beautiful works. Again, a super-versatile band, and I have great admiration for everything they do.
Alpha Male Tea Party
The other influence we wear on our sleeves is AMTP. Tom Peters was a bit of a guitar hero of mine, so to have him mixing our new album and digging the tunes is a dream come true. AMTP were such a breath of fresh air on the UK instrumental scene. They’re absolute riff machines – there are no meandering arpeggios with delay or one-note lead lines slathered in reverb; every song is just jam-packed with banging hooks. Health is the album that really got me addicted. Tom’s production on that, especially "Have You Ever Seen Milk", is spellbinding, and the riffs punch me right in the gut. In the very best way.
Cloudkicker
I’d actually forgotten that I used to rinse Cloudkicker back in the day until "Explore, Be Curious" came up on The Streaming Platform That Must Not Be Named recently. I thought, “Whoa. Those harmonised guitars are really Maebe. Who is this?” I went back and listened to Let Yourself Be Huge and it all came flooding back: having no money as a teenager, finding Cloudkicker’s music for free download on Bandcamp, and devouring that stuff until it seeped into my musical DNA. At the time, I knew that Ben Sharp made all the music himself – that may well have planted the seed to start Maebe in the first place.
Joe Satriani
One of the great shred guitar heroes? In a post-rock list? Hear me out, and forget the ’80s cheese for a minute. Around the turn of the millennium, Satch was putting out material that ventured outside of the typical virtuoso paradigm. Crystal Planet (1997) has some sick math-y riffs and Engines of Creation (2000) is a nuts shred-electronica record. Songs like "Searching" and "Bamboo" from Is There Love in Space? (2004) are a total mood – balancing technical guitar playing with atmospheric backing isn’t something many guitarists can pull off tastefully, certainly from that era.
Satriani is forever infused in my playing (see the Maebe song "God Wit"), especially his ability to emulate vocal lines on guitar. The knack is employing that in a way that doesn’t sound totally naff, and I think that’s something he achieved in this era.
Night Verses
Speaking of using technicality in a cool way, Nick DiPirro is one of today’s absolute Gs. Night Verses pull from similar core influences to all of us in Maebe – Rage Against the Machine, Incubus, Deftones – but they hone in on the heaviest aspects of those bands. Nick’s use of DigiTech Whammy pitch shifting to drive riffs like "Arrival" and "Karma Wheel", and his use of effects generally, is awe-inspiring. One of my favorite modern players, hands down. And props for being a band that got more successful when they went instrumental.
Brontide
Hearing Brontide for the first time was pure magic: here was everything I loved about instrumental rock, smashed into one cohesive whole. The early 2010s was a golden era for British post-rock, so I didn’t appreciate quite how special they were until the band called it a day, but I saw them open for Oceansize and Thrice, and was absolutely floored. Tim Hancock’s ability to loop and manipulate this stuff onstage blew my mind. He has such a great ear for heavy riffs and math-y Minus the Bear-esque bleeps and bloops. It’s good to have them back.
Russian Circles
I couldn’t make this list without including the daddies of post-metal. Russian Circles conjure a world entirely of their own with each album – that world just happens to be an apocalyptic wasteland in varying states of decay. Mike Sullivan opened my eyes to just how dense and punishing instrumental music can be, but some of my favorite moments are the band’s more mellow tunes – "1777" is one of their best melodically, in my opinion. Dave Turncrantz’s endlessly inventive grooves are a big influence on how we structure and develop our songs, too.
Pelican
Riffs are a core part of the Maebe identity – and nobody does instrumental riffs like Pelican. Theirs reach for a higher plain: you can hum them, but they also conjure a mood, and that’s not always easy to do without layering a bunch of stuff on top. I definitely aspire to deliver similar standards (even if I can’t resist chucking a load of extra layers in there). What We All Come to Need is the album I return to most from Pelican – I feel like that’s the record where they really established their sound. Ephemeral is such a banger, I had to name a Maebe song after it.
The Fierce & the Dead
Like Cloudkicker, UK prog outfit The Fierce & The Dead were generous enough to make their music available for free on Bandcamp in the early days, which is how I first discovered them. I was familiar with the solo acoustic looping of guitarist Matt Stevens, but his electric playing captured me even more on their 2011 debut, If It Carries On Like This We Are Moving To Morecambe.
There are so many standout moments on this record: "Flint" is the perfect amalgamation of Radiohead and Mogwai, "Landcrab" is a frenetic post-hardcore rager and "Andy Fox" is proper sinister soundtrack stuff. Again, it’s all about the versatility. We opened for them in Bristol a few years back, and their influence really hit home that night.