Commando (Relationship Of Command - At The Drive-In)

Member Name: Pulsebeat

Product:	Relationship Of Command - At The Drive-In
Date:	27/04/01 (51 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It sounds like armageddon

Disadvantages: they may have split

In the year 2001, the world is sadly lacking any guitar bands who are inspirational or even creating music worth listening to, and visionary hip-hop and r'n'b producers are making the future of music every day. On one hand you have your Coldplays and Travis type bands, which are pleasant enough, but my God are they dull and on the other hand there are the Offsprings, Blink 182s and Limp Bizkits, who are frankly so bad that they are not even worth commenting on let alone listening to.

It is a sad fact, but At the Drive In, may be no more. Exhausted from touring they are said to be on an indefinite haitus (the term Pavement used when they split up), which shows how nmuch their music genuinely means to them. But right now the world couldn't need them more.

When you put 'Relationship of Command' on your stereo, it jumps out the speakers and bludgeons you to death with its sheer brutality. At first it just sounds like an amazingly heavy mixture of Rage Against the Machine and the MC5, but on repeated listens it turns into a work of tuneful complex beauty. First track Arcarsenal, is very, very, very heavy, and the only audible vocals are lead singer Cedric Bixler screaming 'so who's in charge because I'd really like to meet him'. Limp-Bizkit producer Ross Robinson gives At the Drive In, the sound which they lacked on previous albums, the guitars are muscular and the drums skull-shattering.

Every track is a killer, the pace rarely drops below frantic, but when it does, it shows that At the Drive In are capable stylistic variety. The crowning triumph of the album is 'Invalid Litter Department', Cedric tenderly sings the line 'dancing on the corpses ashes' like a nursery ryhme before the song ruptures like a spleen.

Bonus points for featuring Iggy Pop as all good albums should on 'Rolodex Propaganda', where he rambles like a senile Elvis, and he also makes kidnapping demands to
a mother of a child on 'Enfilade'. Pure genius.

If you don't like your music heavy, avoid this like the plague. However, if you are a fan of intelligent, social conscious (they politely ask fans not to mosh at gigs), all out rock that could knock you down at 100 paces, buy, buy buy!!! Please don't split, the world needs you.

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