Karate Pockets Southern Records The music of Karate will, to me, always be the soundtrack of my failed fall semester of my freshman year of college. Nearly every school day, if my mom wasn't working, I would get up and go drive instead of going to class like I should have. It would just be a random thing, going wherever I wanted, as long as I didn't stray near a classroom. I would indulge myself in fantasies of just taking off right then and driving to some faraway place, never to return. They were dreams of ending up in California, or New York, or in some remote township of rural middle America and not letting anyone find me. Knowing nobody. Nothing tying me down. All of my surroundings a mystery. That great feeling of vagrancy and isolation that is brought on by reading Kerouac. I longed for it. And all the while I would listen to a burned copy of a bunch of Karate songs I had downloaded from Kazaa. Geoff Farina's morose vocals and outlandish improvisational guitar solos fit perfectly with the mood I was in. There's something very lonely about the music of Karate. For those of you that have never heard the band, the music is like a mix of Jazz or Blues with a quirky post-punk element thrown in. One of the highlights with Karate is the guitar work. Geoff's solos are some of the best I've ever heard. We're not talking big wanky metal solos. This is where the jazz element really comes in. His improvisational live shows make this band one of the best performances you'll ever see. In fact, the rhythm section kinda takes a back seat to the guitar. Not to say that they aren't important in the bands music, they just seem muted in comparison. Also, Farina's style of singing is pretty unique. It kinda reminds me of the beat poets of the 50's. He barely sings/almost speaks over the music, yet it still somehow retains it's tunefulness. On the lyrical side of things, Farina will go from intensely personal to scathingly political mid-song, without any warning, making the political outrage feel like a more personal experience. For example, the song "Tow Truck" is a story of Farina's car breaking down and his encounter with a conservative and possibly racist tow truck driver who wears his political and social opinions on his sleeve ("They come from down south just tryin' to take my job. They're coming in from all sides lookin' for a free ride. You know, we're all getting robbed."). Actually, this album is a bit different than Karate's previous efforts in a couple major areas. This album is a lot less lyrically driven than the group's five previous efforts. It also advances the ideas that Farina presented on 2002's Some Boots. The jazz element is more refined on this album. I can see a definite progression through their albums all the way from '95's self-titled debut to Pockets. I think, if the trend continues, we'll eventually see Karate all but drop the post-punk element and just go to an almost straight-up improvisational jazz band. Pockets is a very short album. It has only 8 tracks, and runs a little over 38 minutes. A very short album indeed. The album's opener, "With Age" is a tale of a meeting with an old girlfriend after years of not seeing each other and staying at a bar all night talking until they get cut off and forced out of the place. Farina's lyrics are nearly poetic in their phrasing. This song also features one of the most insane guitar solos I have ever heard. It's a manic, fast paced solo that harks back to the sixties in the days of Hendrix, and it contrasts sharply with the clean chords on the verse. "'The State I'm In" aka "Goode Buy from Cobbs Creek Park'" is at the same time, an exultant look back at growing up in Philadelphia, and a somber view of the political happenings of the city in 1985. The song is probably the most fast-paced singing on any Karate song. The second half of the album (with the exception of "Tow Truck") has the feel of a Codeine album, which fits, because Chris Brokaw of the afformentioned band plays on two of the songs ("Cacophany" and "Concrete"). "Cacophany" actually sounds like something that could've been taken straight from Frigid Stars. As one of the more muted songs on the album, you can really see where Karate got their influence. "Concrete" closes the album and clocking in at eight and a half minutes, it's the longest song on the album. It's a rambling, brooding look at urban sprawl and it's effects on people and the environment and the perfect end for a great album. Pockets is yet another strong release in Karate's already formidable catalog. It even makes me nostalgic for that period of time in which I would never go to school and instead daydream of leaving it all behind. -austin 10/15/04