At The Drive-In is back

That's all.

I was maanaging a terrible corporate chain record store when "Relationship of Command" came out. I had no idea who they were. A friend of mine that worked with me took the promo home and came back the next day saying "you have got to hear this". We played it over the in-store sound system CONSTANTLY over the next six months or so. KILLER record.

But then both Sparta and Mars Volta completely sucked!

didn't the guy kill himself?

Haha I remember Sparta dudes yelling at kids to stop moshing during their set the first time I saw them. 1. you're not Ian and 2. you wish kids gave a shit enough about your band to feel compelled to move around.

Relationship of Command rules, don't care what Pitchfork douche cadets have to say about that.

I love the first Mars Volta record though. It came out right before I hit that point in life where I was no longer willing to work at music. I've listened to that album pretty consistently since it came out.

Michael Barnes wrote: I was maanaging a terrible corporate chain record store when "Relationship of Command" came out. I had no idea who they were. A friend of mine that worked with me took the promo home and came back the next day saying "you have got to hear this". We played it over the in-store sound system CONSTANTLY over the next six months or so. KILLER record.

But then both Sparta and Mars Volta completely sucked!

At The Drive-In was the last band that made me discover a (for me) completely new and awesome music scene, this whole post-hc/emocore thing (not to be confused with recent years emo, which is basically pop-punk for depressed teenagers). These are my favorites, check them out, if you didn't already: Rites Of Spring, Cap'n Jazz, Heroin, Angel Hair, Current, Refused, The Blood Brothers, Milemarker, and last, but not least, Fugazi. I know it's ridiculous, but I started to listen to Fugazi after At The Drive-In...

BTW, I wouldn't say Sparta and The Mars Volta sucked. Sparta has released a correct post-hc album after the break-up, with lots of fucking good melodies, it just lacked the originality and brilliance of At The Drive-In, so I gave up on them after that. They probably continued in the same vein. On the other hand, The Mars Volta is full of originality, but the songs just don't work as songs (with a couple of exceptions. See: "Cicatrice ESP"), they are just complex for complexity's sake. Looks like At The Drive-In was so good because the two group completed each other.

(The story of Refused is strikingly similar: Dennis Lyxzén's The (International) Noise Conspiracy plays extremely catchy but superficial music, while the rest of the band formed TEXT, which is very interesting and avantgarde, but almost completely unlistenable.)