Karate

UNSOLVED

(Southern)

It may be painful for some folks to admit, but there are punk bands around these days who sound as if they'd spent more time listening to Steely Dan than moshing to Black Flag. Whether that's evidence of punk's elasticity or of its increasing uselessness as a genre heading is certainly up for discussion. And Karate's Geoff Farina has something to add to the conversation. Over the past five years he has reshaped his Boston-based emo-tinged trio into a combo who now serve up a hollow-body jazz-guitar sound and free-verse poetry. Farina's guitar riffs echo the noodling style of jazz great Wes Montgomery, yet they sit amid slow, ropy bass lines and feedback waverings reminiscent of Fugazi's quieter moments. His lyrics, with their poetry-slam urgency, combine seemingly meaningless passages ("Choked today on blank Tudor boldness") with painful memories recounted in hip verse ("I must revise this romance in rust/Trade this stash for cash/Trade in these goods for ash"). The freshness of Unsolved stems from this odd mixture of post-punk and jazzbo impulses. As a songwriter, Farina gives equal weight to his virtuosity and his artistic yearnings; the result is both cerebral and heartfelt, a rarity in any era, but a particularly welcome counterpoint to the math-rock coldness and pop cleverness that often pass for post-punk.

-- Lois Maffeo

(Karate celebrate the release of Unsolved this Friday, December 15, upstairs at the Middle East. Call 864-EAST.)