Time Expired＜限定盤/Cacophony Splatter vinyl＞

アルバム「Unsolved」「Some Boots」「Pockets」、初回プレスの「Cancel/Sing EP」、最近発掘された未発表曲2曲のリハーサル音源を収録したLP5枚組が登場。限定Cacophony Splatter vinyl。

Boston trio Karate began incorporating new ideas into their intricately constructed post-hardcore style on their third album, 1998s The Bed Is in the Ocean. Starting there, the band began weaving complex jazz guitar soloing and more advanced compositional ideas into their slow-paced, introspective emo rock, landing on a sound not explored by too many of their peers. Time Expired collects Karates output from the time of their 2000 album Unsolved to their initial breakup in 2005 after releasing their final album, Pockets, the year before. Its a definitive look at the phase when the group all but extracted any hints of punk from their sound, leaning instead into straightforward jazz structures and chord progressions on tunes like Unsolveds "The Lived-But-Yet-Named," experiments with space and formlessness on Some Boots tracks like "South" in 2002, and even extended improvisations and experiments with sound processing on the lengthy tracks from their 2001 EP Cancel/Sing. Instead of just assimilating these musical ideas, Karate truly built on them, with singer/guitarist/songwriter Geoff Farinas pensive vocals and sometimes abstract, sometimes emotionally bare songwriting always at the core of even the bands most stylistically unmoored songs. Time Expired collects Unsolved, Cancel/Sing, Some Boots, and Pockets, and also includes previously unreleased rehearsal tapes from around the time of Unsolved. The extremely lo-fi rehearsal recordings are perhaps the most telling artifact of the entire collection, capturing the band in a moment of uninhibited jamming and giving a sense of how far out their ideas could get before being reined back in during the recording process. Absorbing the entirety of Karates second phase presented here (relegating The Bed Is in the Ocean to more of a transitional document) illuminates just how far outside the indie rock trends of their day the band was. ~ Fred Thomas