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I spent the vast majority of my music degree sat at the back of various jazz studies lessons silently judging the drones of 'robot' jazz guitarists, praying for someone to come along and inject a passion for this genre of music into me.

Like most degrees, the vast majority of my time was spent writing essay after essay on subjects I had little to no interest in, but on one rare occasion I got to choose a genre of music to write about. With no real thought, I decided to write about the genre emo, as I had a vague interest in the genre and it's one that is associated with many great bands.

As a part of my research I went onto Last.fm and started a 'similar artists' adventure, which lead me to hundreds of different bands, most of which wouldn't fit under what I would consider emo. One band that did pop-up, however, was Karate

The name seemed interesting enough, so I donned my headphones and pressed play. "WOW!!! what the hell was that?" I thought, it certainly wasn't emo, which proved my point about how ridiculously over-used that tag was, but damn was it good!

After listening to "This, Plus Slow Song" for the hundredth time in a row, I went out and bought anything I could get my hands on, and subsequently spent the next couple of months learning every note of every song and preaching to anyone I knew about just how great this band was. My jazz teachers invariably hated it, claiming it was jazz on a budget and my non-musician friends either loved it or claimed it was too jazzy; so it was fair to say that this band polarized opinion.

A band playing a strange blend of indie, jazz, rock and punk led by a graduate of Berklee College, certainly wouldn't inspire many people to want to give it a try, especially me, I know what the vast majority of music students are like! I've seen every cheesy, thought-out and 'trying to be clever' band you can imagine, so I can certainly see why people would be cynical. But after giving them a go, you soon realise just how different they are. Instead of using that musical education as a platform to create clever music just to prove they could, they used it to make the songs they wanted to make, without compromising anything.

Shamefully, I only got into Karate the year they disbanded, and a full eight years after In Place Of Real Insight was released, but nonetheless, they still had a great impact on my life.

Nine tracks in length, In Place Of Real Insight is a great example of Karate's sound. The first track, "This, Plus New Song", has the album kicking-off just how the song title would suggest. A collection of suspended 2nd's and sweet major seven chords fall upon a simple drum groove, creating the perfect accompaniment to Geoff Farina's laid back vocals. As vocalist Geoff Farina sings "imagine yourself dumb, like someone's careless daughter, you can't remember just what he said, but it still bears down all on your pretty head", we get a glimpse of the abstract nature of his lyrics, which acts as the one consistent thing that runs through Karate's music.

After that, the album grows with each song and by the time we get to the album closer, "Today Or Tomorrow" you'll be wondering what just happened. I know that when I heard the album for the first time I had a huge feeling of disorientation, but in a good way. It's the feeling you get when you hear something so original, that it takes your brain some time to process it all.

Arguably, this probably isn't even their best work. Many would point their finger to the slightly more mature Pockets album or even their explosive, self-titled debut. But an album made eleven years ago, by a band that somehow manages to simultaneously go against the grain, as well as going with it, shouldn't sound this fresh or important, but it does.

Thats why this article is so long and that's also why this will always be my favourite Karate album! Now go out and give it a listen!

Glorytellers is Karate's Geoff Farina's latest incarnation. Glorytellers recently released their self-titled debut album, Glorytellers, through Southern Records. You can buy this or any of Karate's back catalogue from the Southern Webshop.

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