Pockets

In Karate's decade of performing and recording they have refined their sound to a streamlined rock hybrid that is hard to pin down, and they have slowly but surely forged a unique sonic identity that is all their own.

Pockets continues the project of lacing shrewd rock songwriting with quirky, soulful rhythms that the band introduced with Unsolved. This time around the songs are more concise and the tempos quicker, but Pockets also has its contemplative moments. Case in point is "Water," the song from which the recording's title comes, one that begins with a century-old blues progression and gently meanders into the 8th-note strumming style of the Secret Stars, Geoff Farina's other (early-90s) band. While the sparse and trudging "Alingual" sounds straight off one of Karate's early singles, the densely textured "Cacophony" and "Concrete" feature the gritty guitar work of Chris Brokaw (Consonant, Pullman, Steve Wynn, Come, Codeine).