Karate Fires

There have been a few older indie bands that I've really connected with this year. I've been on a steady diet of stuff like The Cure, Modest Mouse and The Smiths.... but the biggest surprise this year has been my rediscovery of Karate. When I first heard this band in the late 90's/early 2000's, I thought that I might enjoy them, and proceeded to download three of their albums through Napster (or one of the many file sharing services that I was using at the time)... and even though I would give those albums a listen once every year or so, Karate never quite clicked with me and ultimately were forgettable.

20 years later, and looking back on where I was musically, I'm impressed that I even made the attempt back then because this is far outside of what I was listening to on a regular basis. Nice try, younger self.

When I decided to try Karate again this year, and started listening to The Bed Is In The Ocean, I was surprised with just how much I loved it. It was ridiculous just how much I listened to that record over the summer, and as we moved into the Fall, I figured that maybe it was time to try another album from the band. I jumped into Spotify and queued up their record from 2000, Unsolved, to see how it sat with me.

To be honest, I really wasn't expecting much with Unsolved. When I started listening, my 2000-brain kicked back in and I figured this record would be slow and boring. I was fully prepared to accept The Bed Is In The Ocean as the exception rather than the rule, and that it would probably be the only Karate that I liked. I love being proven wrong... because while Unsolved is more laid back, jazzy and chill, I still can't get enough of it.

Because I had picked up a colored vinyl reissue for The Bed Is In The Ocean, I wanted the same deal for Unsolved. After debating for a couple of weeks which version to get the "small fires" color which was on sale at the label's webstore for only $22.