At The Drive-In LANDMARK: Relationship of Command by: Ed Butler Tue:19-Aug-08 Label: Grand Royal Year: 2000 WB rating 91 out of 100

Rock ‘n’ Roll is such a ubiquitous notion. Britney Spears covered Joan Jett. Radiohead are Rock ‘n’ Roll, Dylan was Rock ‘n’ Roll, The Stones, Spoon, Arcade Fire, Jet, all Rock ‘n’ Roll. From anywhere on the musical spectrum one can find somebody claiming to be purveyors of rock. Sure, there are derivative labels for the lazy among us, chiefly the horrid “post-rock” tag that gets stapled to the more avant-garde among that group, but since the Big Bopper and Little Richard took 4/4 time and shook the shit out of it, rock ‘n’ roll has expanded its borders to the point that the label is almost useless.

But to truly capture the idea of what rock is, one must consider how the original fans felt while listening to it. It was, by the standards of the time, irredeemably heavy, drug-addled and dangerous. It was thrilling, up-tempo and astonishingly visceral. Today, it is increasingly difficult to find music that can evoke that kind of genuinely primal response from the audience. This is not to say that rock music must be merely vicious sound and fury, but it certainly helps. Truly great rock is cerebral to boot. AC/DC is not enough.

In this light, then, Relationship of Command is possibly the greatest hard rock album of all time. The three minute apoplectic seizure that is the opening ‘Arcarsenal’ is, in every respect, a microcosm of the aural carnage to come, with Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s larynx-busting screams and introductory gasps a sonic representation of the animalistic power of the music. Music that seems to have the power to burst the eyeballs he periodically sings about.

Of course, what he sings about is up for interpretation. Take this spectacular little nugget from ‘One Armed Scissor’; “Yes this is the campaign/Slithered entrails in the cargo bay/ Neutered is the vastness”. Quasi-political polemics rarely dance so well with horror movie aesthetics, and when Bixler-Zavala unleashes it with his operatic wail, there is a cohesiveness that makes his scattershot subject matter all the more thrilling. Paired with the remainder of At the Drive-In’s fiercely rhythmic, tight and lean rock, the forcefulness is not only stirring, but strangely enthralling.

ATDI were, upon the release of this album, victims of inevitable backlash, most prominently of the “this is not a representation of their awesome live show” variety. But, frankly, if At the Drive-In’s live shows were such as to make Relationship of Command appear bland, then they must have induced audience aneurisms on a nightly basis. As it is, Relationship of Command is likely to give you a nosebleed.

This kind of face-melting intensity is only half of the equation, however. Coming in the same year as Radiohead’s Kid A, Relationship of Command showed the same callous disregard for conventional songwriting – merely transferred to a totally different musical form. Lead single, the pulsating ‘One Armed Scissor’ contains, at first glance, a relatively unadventurous verse-chorus-verse structure, before it becomes apparent that each verse is essentially different, an individual part of a gloriously schizophrenic whole.

Elsewhere, ‘Cosmonaut’ possesses possibly the most triumphant middle-eighth breakdown in history, while Iggy Pop lends history’s tick of approval, appearing on ‘Rolodex Propaganda’, his presence contributing more in added mythology than vocal stylings. Album centerpiece, ‘Invalid Litter Dept.’ offers the clearest hint at what Bixler-Zavala and guitar maestro Omar Rodriguez would offer as The Mars Volta, the prog-rock freak-out that arose in the wake of ATDI’s implosion.

Irrespective, though, of what The Mars Volta ever manage, on Relationship of Command, At the Drive-In delivered an almighty jolt to a rock fraternity that was continually expanding, and simultaneously betraying its founding fathers. While there is little doubt that rock’s progenitors would have roundly hated it, their legacy lives on in the furious energy the band brought to bear here. If nothing else, At the Drive-In raised the bar on those bands who would claim, as so many have, to ‘rock’.