At The Drive In - "Relationship of Command"

At The Drive In - Relationship of Command, 2000 - Grand Royal

Delivered as a sucker punch at the tail end of their career, "Relationship of Command" demands respect through force and delivers delicious proggy post-hardcore rock in heavy doses.

At The Drive-In's final album proves what Fleetwood Mac's "Rumors" did decades earlier : that artistic creativity flourishes under stressful personal situations. At this point in ATDI's career, they had enjoyed moderate success due to their previous album "In/Casino/Out", which had scored them major points with indie kids who love ATDI's Fugazi-meets-metal-meets-Grade style. So, "Relationship of Command" had put the band in a lot of pressure : They were working with Ross Robinson, legendary producer and even featured Iggy Pop on background vocals, but their label, Beastie Boys' Grand Royal, which had bankrolled these expensive measures, was expecting miracles.

Everyone was straining to go different directions and it shows. Lead singer Cedric and lead guitar weilder Omar were preparing to destroy our minds with their deadly prog-rock assault of The Mars Volta, while Tony Hajjar (drums) and Paul Himojos (bass) were ready to take over the world with AOR-ready arena rock of Sparta. These two conflicting forces enable songs like "Sleepwalk Capsules" to bristle with untamed tension.

The album begins with "Arcarsenal" a song full of menace, built on a pulsing drumbeat which swells and sweeps and gathers momentum until Omar lets a guitar line coalesce out of the ether to punch holes in your head. The album fluctuates between the stop-start-stop-again dynamics of "One Armed Scissor" (which enjoyed modest radio play) and the bizarre fragmented rock of songs like "Enfilade".

The power of the music of At The Drive In is hard to explain to the uninitiated : guitars swell and squeal like roaring thunder punctuated by lightning bolts, drums seem pounded into oblivion in odd time signatures, somehow matching up, bass lines fuzz up so hard they almost are indistinguishable, the vocal lines are always in flux between whispered confessions ("Non Zero Possibility") and hoarse-throated screams ("Mannequin Republic."), the lyrics are poetic, dense and almost impenetrable, save for the choruses. For example, I may not know what he means when he says "Hypodermic people poking fun at the loving" in "Pattern Against User", but when he screams "Cut away! Cut away!" during the chorus of "One Armed Scissor", there's no mistaking what he really means.

For fans of music that satisfies the need to rock as well as the need to think, At The Drive-In are the go-to group. Though their previous albums had all been good, there's a certain quality about "Relationship of Command" that stands high above the others. Even though it is their most heavily-produced album yet, it still remains raw, like a wound that festers but won't ever heal. The rift between the band members and the pressures of recording show through in a testament to the statement that anger is a gift.

It is for this cathartic quality, and for the document of the final days of one of the better rock bands at the time, that "Relationship of Command" is a Desert Island Record.