Karate

Boston's Karate channels post-hardcore's compressed force through sharply angled guitar lines rendered in pristine, open sonic spaces while embracing a calculated exactitude that their looser contemporaries often bypassed. Patient pacing and reflective moodscapes pushed the group's opening pair of full-lengths—Karate in 1995 and In Place of Real Insight in 1997—toward slowcore territory, yet the trio gradually folded in pronounced jazz elements, spontaneous improvisation, and post-rock shading, most notably on the 2000 release Unsolved. After dissolving in 2005, the band resurfaced in 2022 once Numero Group launched a comprehensive reissue program for their long-unavailable catalog; several years of catalog restoration and live activity culminated in the October 2024 arrival of Make It Fit, the first collection of original material in more than two decades.

The project originated in 1993 when guitarist and vocalist Geoff Farina joined bassist Eamonn Vitt and drummer Gavin McCarthy. Soon afterward the initial lineup committed the lo-fi self-released cassette Sometimes You're a Radio to tape, followed by multiple 7-inch singles and the self-titled 1995 debut album. Before the year ended, Jeff Goddard joined on bass, shifting Vitt to second guitar. The resulting quartet delivered In Place of Real Insight in 1997; shortly thereafter Vitt departed to study medicine.

Reduced once more to a trio, Karate pursued fresh avenues, first investigating jazz-inflected technique and structural elasticity on 1998's The Bed Is in the Ocean before applying post-rock strategies to the expansive double-length Unsolved in 2000. The appetite for extended pieces persisted on the 2001 EP Cancel/Sing, whose pair of tracks stretched close to thirty minutes. Two additional studio albums—Some Boots in 2002 and Pockets in 2004—appeared alongside assorted live documents and side projects prior to the 2005 split. The posthumous live set 595 surfaced in 2007, documenting what the members have described as the 595th of the 694 concerts they performed between 1993 and 2005, and their personal favorite.

After regaining control of their masters, the musicians partnered with Numero Group in 2021 to begin reissuing the out-of-print discography. Initial digital editions covered the earliest single and the first two albums, with subsequent titles following; the 2022 box set Time Expired gathered material spanning 2000 through the original disbandment. That same year Karate resumed live performance after a seventeen-year absence. In 2023 Numero Group issued the eight-disc Complete Studio Recordings, encompassing sixty-nine tracks that comprise all six original studio albums plus selections from EPs and singles. October 2024 brought Make It Fit, Karate's seventh studio album and first new recording since Pockets; once again the band enlisted engineer Andy Hong and ventured into stylistic territory that diverged from their earlier work.