Day 3/7: Somewhere in between Blink 182 releasing Enema Of The State (1999) and Take Off Your Pants & Jacket (2001), At The Drive-In went and released Relationship of Command. That year, a certain breed of punk rock maxed out on its mainstream ambitions. The entire California hardcore sound (from Green Day to Rancid) had rapidly morphed from a fast, bored and cynical bratty misfits take on American suburbia and into a scene dominated by a wealthy, white and college-educated fratbros with gym memberships. So when At The Drive-In launched their most widely acclaimed album yet, they were immediately hailed as the saviours of punk. This wasnt exactly true, of course. D.C. still had Fugazi and Swedens Refused had pretty much foreshadowed everything At The Drive-In were about to do in The Shape of Punk to Come (1998). But in the context of the punk canon of 2000, this album resonated worlds away. The genre was finally indebted to neither the East or West Coast, but had found itself hijacked by an eccentric bunch of immigrant Texans. Relationship of Command took the same raw, angular energy that defined Vaya and In/Casino/Out, and converted it into something unashamedly high-fidelity. Special care in the drum tones and guitar effects paved the way for what would soon become The Mars Volta, while Jim Wards pop sensibilities began to reign in the songs structurally. Even Iggy Pop was called in to perform backing vocal duties, which typically (given Cedric and Omars level of control over every aspect of the bands sound) are inaudible in the mix. If these were the guys with the undesirable task of saving punk, they didnt last at it very long. Just one year later, after a very public on stage micro-breakdown by Cedric on the Australian leg of the Big Day Out tour (in which he chastises the crowd for moshing and mocks them for behaving like sheep), the band took a (pretty much) permanent hiatus. Listening to The Mars Volta and Sparta (the two bands that formed out of the T1000-like goop left behind) now, you can easily hear the two competing forces that lent At The Drive-In its intensity now running ineffectively in parallel to one another. The Mars Volta, all grandiose prog rock with a lack of focus and too many disparate ideas. Sparta, all wasted energy with every predictable move stolen straight from the punk playbook. For one short year, the greatest punk band of my generation toured the most viable album of their careers. The Shape of Punk to Come had come to life exactly as predicted, birthing a new sub-genre of complex but aggressive hardcore that even made its way to New Zealand in the form of the Mint Chicks. So what was the most important track on Relationship of Command? Sonically, theres nothing quite like the drums on opening track, Arcarsensal. The heart-wrenching and important video for Invalid Litter Dept is worth a thousand views. But the song and video that best captures the spirit of the moment for me absolutely remains the single... One Armed Scissor.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 14:36:51 +0000
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