Durham NC’s Maple Stave have been developing their dynamic, dense, restless style for 20
years. Heavy, tense, patient, and frantic, their take on melodic, complex music owes a debt to
the sounds of 1990s Louisville KY, Chicago IL, and Olympia’s Unwound, but has become
something very different from its roots. Described variously as “defined by precision” (Grayson
Haver Currin, Indyweek), “full of seething urgency and artful arrangements” (Mike Breen,
Cincinnati CityBeat), and “post-metal, in a hardcore vein” (someone outside a club in Athens GA
who was unaware they were standing next to the drummer), the band is releasing Arguments,
their first recording in seven years and proof that they have not mellowed with age.
Andy Hull (baritone guitar), Evan Rowe (drums), and Chris Williams (baritone guitar, vocals)
operated as a trio for 16 of those 20 years. Upon asking Chris Rasmussen (bass) to join them in
2019 for a set at a festival in Chicago, it became clear they’d somehow evolved into a
four-piece. Separated by a continent (Rasmussen lives in Seattle WA) and a pandemic, they
wrote and finished the songs that would become Arguments, collaborating with Rasmussen
remotely, as much of the world was doing at the time. As the band has returned to stages, they
play primarily as the original powerful trio but meet up with Rasmussen whenever possible, as
they did for 2022’s Caterwaul festival–sharing the stage that night with Deep Tunnel Project and
Arcwelder–and to record the nine songs on Arguments in four days at Chicago’s Electrical Audio
with Scott Evans (Kowloon Walled City, Sumac, Sleep) engineering and mixing.
Arguments doubles down on the urgency of prior efforts, constantly propulsive, from the opening
pounding growl of “Indian Ocean: Present Day” to the eventual calamitous explosion that ends
“I’m Not Tied to Pretty”. Dixie Jacobs (Body Futures) and John Hastie (Nonagon) lend support
on vocals, aiding the band in their effort to overwhelm. The result is a collection of complex but
accidentally catchy songs that barely lets up during the 33 minutes it demands a listener’s
attention. On Arguments, Maple Stave sound by turns vicious, desperate, defiant, and hopeful,
and very much like a band with the almost telepathic sense of one another’s next move that
comes with 20 years of life lived together.
