Cool chops

Karate make anger sound fresh

by Brett Milano

The problem these days with moody, introspective guitar rock is that there's so damn much of it around. The sound of a hypersensitive singer delivering obliquely angry lyrics against a wall of ebb-and-flow guitars -- it's pretty familiar by now. The only way such a band can stand out is by playing it differently, or by playing it as if their lives depended on it.

Karate stand out because they do a little bit of the former and a whole lot of the latter. They're a young band whose influences go back to the late '80s. Some of those influences are pronounced: frontman Geoff Farina makes no secret of his love for Codeine and Fugazi. Other traces are more subtle; there's some Galaxie 500 in there, and the rhythm riff that opens "More More," from the new CD In Place of Real Insight (Southern), smacks of early Throwing Muses. What Karate bring to that sound has a little to do with Farina's sense of songwriting. He can write catchy bits when he wants to (and he does so more regularly with his other band, Secret Stars), but he doesn't trust that kind of easy reassurance. Hence the more appealing the melodic hook is in a Karate song, the more likely they are to shift gears abruptly or end the song altogether.

Mostly, however, what works is the subtly seething quality about the new disc, whose nine songs achieve a continuous flow of mood and guitar sounds. As brief vocal sections give way to long chordal workouts, you can hear the singer's frustration turning inward. The CD's centerpiece, "Hang Out Condition," is where the dark stuff gets worked out through a long and churning guitar passage; the slightly poppier songs that follow don't wrap things up too neatly. With the line-up expanded from trio to quartet (bassist Jeff Goddard, also of the Lune and late of Moving Targets, has joined and Eamonn Vitt has moved to second guitar), the band get a fuller sound that captures their live approach better than did their first album, last year's S/T. Karate will celebrate the new CD's release with a show at the Middle East this Friday, April 25.

"I don't think we've made a good record yet," notes Farina when we meet at the Liberty Café. "On the first one, we definitely didn't know what we were doing. I think that people liked the potential on it rather than the music itself. At least on this one we actually played the songs, rather than mathematically imprinting them on two-inch tape. As far as the songwriting goes, we write nine songs a year, so these are basically the nine that we knew."

An earnest personality on stage and off, Farina says that the oblique nature of the songwriting is a way of keeping preachiness in check. "We're a serious and angry band; that's the product of growing up with DC hardcore. Eamonn, Gavin [McCarthy, drums], and I all grew up in Harrisburg, and we were all influenced by that scene -- the fist banging on the table. For a song to work it has to be cathartic for real; you may go through the motions sometimes, but you can't let it happen very often."

If Farina used to write from a more political slant, the lyrics on the new CD deal mainly with failed interpersonal connections. "It's definitely suggestive of some kind of frustration. I thought about the lyrics and tried harder not to be didactic; I became kind of hypersensitive about that. I wanted to bring myself down to the level of the listener. Our shows are supposed to be a shared thing between me and the people watching, as opposed to a monologue. So we don't want to pretend we're apart from anyone else in the world. Some of the songs are me saying, `Here I am and I've been through these things that everybody else has been through.' "

Still, Karate have been getting a bit of a "next big thing" reaction from the local music community lately. "It's totally flattering and I feel there's too much going on to take any of it seriously," says the ever-critical Farina. "I don't know how to relate to that, but I appreciate it; thanks a lot. I don't know if I'd call us a great band, but I feel we have moments in the show where this catharsis happens among all of us, and that's when it's good. The four of us are friends and we're always together, so I'm not scared that the chemistry won't happen, because it always does. I'm just scared of forgetting the parts or the lyrics."

NEW HELIUM

For my money Helium are entirely capable of being the most creative pop band in Boston, or at least the one doing the most to stretch the limits of the pop format. And they may be the band who've progressed the most as well. Their new EP, No Guitars (Matador), is as different from their album The Dirt of Luck (my pick for the best local album of '95) as that CD was from the tense guitar jams of their early club shows.

Produced by the band with pop icon Mitch Easter, No Guitars -- which in fact has more guitars and fewer keyboards than last time -- is a hauntingly lovely set drenched in mystery and abstraction. No longer driven by rage the way she was in the early days, singer/guitarist Mary Timony has developed a more ghostly style of singing -- which is appropriate, because the six tracks here form a musical ghost story of sorts. The opening "Silver Strings" is the closest thing to a straight-ahead pop tune, with a soft-then-loud structure, extra layers of guitar from Easter, and a fine hook for Timony to wrap herself around. The chorus could almost come from a Saturday-night fun song, but they've got something more sinister in mind: "We're going out with our guitars/ I play the radio, baby, in the Devil's car/And we're going out and we'll never come back." Suffice to say that she isn't just driving to Somerville.

That mood is maintained through the disc, which clings less to pop structures and includes a Renaissance-styled instrumental ("13 Bees," a piano/recorder duet) and a 90-second rocker ("The King of Electric Guitars," driven by Shawn King Devlin's military drums). The lengthy finale, "Riddle of the Chamberlin," takes a swing from skewed pop to tape-looped strangeness (think of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life"), before resolving into a pop hook that fades out just as quickly, leaving you hanging until the band's full-length album comes out in August.

JEFF & JANE

Jeff & Jane Hudson's Zeta Brew (on their own J&J label) is one of the nicer local surprises of recent weeks. Nice because of its well-crafted blend of new-wavish pop. Surprising, because . . . well, maybe you saw their first few comeback gigs in town two years ago. "We were terrible," Jane admitted a couple of weeks ago before a CD-release gig at T.T. the Bear's Place. "We were able to claim a kind of innocence because we'd been away from music for so long, but at the same time we're getting a lot better."

Indeed, the Hudsons hadn't played any music for a good 15 years before their re-launching. But they weren't exactly hurting for gigs either. Both had careers directing music videos and teaching at the Museum School, and Jeff had gone into band management, notably with EBN. So why go back into performing?

"Jeffrey started playing acoustic guitar around the house, and it drove me crazy," Jane notes. "Then I started getting sentimental, so I picked up the only instrument I had, which was a Mexican bird whistle. He said, `This is ridiculous, it sucks!', so he bought me a guitar instead."

The CD shows that the Hudsons have grown into a tight little pop combo. Although they used to be a synth-and-voice duo in the original new-wave-rock era, the new sound relies little on electronics (and not at all on Mexican bird whistles). Parts of the disc have an '80s flavor, notably a remake of the Cars-like local hit "Gertrude Stein," which they'd recorded as part of the Rentals (not the more famous Rentals who came along later, making the Hudsons wish they'd trademarked the name). But the sound is a little spiffed-up from the old days, with guitars replacing synths and with Jane now sharing the lead vocals. Some tunes plug into an acoustic sound; others -- notably "Trees Are on Fire," with its "I Wanna Be Your Dog" chord progression -- find them becoming a feisty punk band after all these years. "That's the good thing about being away for so long -- at least we're not burned out," notes Jeff. They play an acoustic gig at the Kendall Café this Friday, the 25th.

COMING UP

A double shot of rowdiness in the Kenmore Square area tonight (Thursday): the inexhaustible Flat Duo Jets are at Bill's Bar and the New Bomb Turks are at the Rat. Meanwhile, Boy Wonder and Max are at Mama Kin, and the band Uz Jsme Doma come all the way from the Czech Republic to play T.T. the Bear's Place . . . The finest long-running rock combo from New London, Connecticut, the Reducers, hit the Linwood tomorrow (Friday) with the Jonny Black Trio opening. Carol Noonan plays Johnny D's, Machinery Hall celebrate Mark Nelson's solo album at Bill's Bar, Peter Prescott brings his Peer Group to T.T.'s, Dick Dale surfs into Mama Kin, Mighty Sam McClain is at the House of Blues, and the mighty Archers of Loaf are downstairs at the Middle East, headlining a strong bill with Jack Drag and Dave (Dambuilders) Derby's other band, Brilliantine . . . The Lyres shake it up at T.T.'s Saturday, El Dopa and Birdbrain are at the Rat, Jules Verdone and Trona are at the Attic in Newton, Susan Tedeschi plays Harpers Ferry, and Tree begin two nights at Mama Kin . . . Neo-psychedelics the Olivia Tremor Control are at the Middle East Sunday, while Son Volt wrap up two nights at the Paradise . . . Syrup USA do the pop at Green Street Grill Monday . . . De La Soul play Axis Tuesday; '77-era punkers UK Subs are at the Middle East.