Karate -- Hipster Music

The Bed Is In the Ocean

You can tell these guys are testing the waters here. They're working with their phrasing and their more airy sound. There is plenty of guitar noodling and kind of similar pacing throughout. They're also working out their lyrics and going to a more poetic, talky approach that fits their music well. I don't know enough about actual music to really know what the deal is, but there is a little too much similarity going on through the album. Maybe the stuff is in the same key or time signature or something, but the hegemony makes the songs blend into one another a little too much. Whatever the case, this is the album that kind of got caught in the ugly stage of transition.

In Place of Real Insight

You can feel the vibe right off the bat on this album. The forward, verging on (gulp) emo vocals, backed by a an increasingly jazzy undertone that starts and stops and swells and retreats and goes off in directions that straight forward indie rock would never dream to explore bring you into the soft pillow that is the true burgeoning of Karate's sound. They do veer into some more traditional emo rock areas at times, most of which will be obliterated a couple albums down the line, but you can't create a new genre over night. They swing wildly between faster, more abrasive stuff and slower, plodding down tempo stuff, but overall, it's a step in the right direction.

Karate

You dudes ready for some jazz-fusion? Do you love the bass? The debut from these Massholes has it all (including a reference to Walden Pond). Taking what feels like some tentative baby steps towards what they will eventually become, they elicit some serious fIREHOSE leanings mixed with some more typical indie rock mid-tempo bedroom head-nodding. They certainly are a band just trying to find their stride on this one, and while it's certainly a unique sound, they don't quite have that competent swagger that they gain on later albums.

Pockets

Two albums removed from their coming out party as a jazz band, these guys have brought in the drama. This album is almost verging on theater in its pretention. Now, I love pretention in my music. Why else would I listen to Destroyer for hours on end? But now each song feels like its own little play, each with its own little piece of showmanship. It's a majestically professional sounding albumówhich isn't always the best thing in my book. I do like rough edges, and this one has very few. It certainly feels like a final album, which is what it is (minus some live and weirdo label albums). They seem like they've taken the jazz rock thing to its logical conclusion, without treading over old ground, but at the point where anything more would overstay its welcome. Despite its sheen, catchy pop-ish tunes and solid musicianship, I still prefer Unsolved for its sheer coolness factor.

Unsolved

So this is what emerges from the cocoon. With their album, In Place of Real Insight, they took that Dischord sound and ran it through an emo filter. Then on The Bed is In the Ocean they took that emo sound and ran it through the jazz filter. Now on this album they emerge as the band they were always bound to become, a modern jazz band. Now, I really don't dig on jazz. But for some reason, this thing works for me. It's just a cool record. It was my early version of the next absolutely cool album I heard, Spoon's Girls Can Tell. It somehow made jazz listenable to me. Perhaps it's the vocals or the lack of endless solos, but these songs, with their lack of verse chorus verse just kind of envelopes you like a calm wave and makes you want to wear a beret and smoke a pack of something harmful.