I first saw and heard At The Drive In when they appeared at the
2001 Big Day Out. Their extremely
frenzied and acrobatic performance kept me sufficiently mesmerized to follow their
subsequent career. Melbourne too fell
under their spell with able support from community radio station 3RRR.
Apparently the band members felt the same way; I once read an article that
stated the band was considering moving from their hometown of Austin Texas to
Melbourne, apparently impressed by the live music scene here. I’m not particularly sure I believe this quote
given Austin has a live scene that is better than ours and the more salient
fact that the band broke up not all that long after I saw them. Both of the main offshoot bands, Sparta and
The Mars Volta, debuted here at subsequent Big Days Out and were greeted with
even greater favour.
What all three bands do brilliantly is play their own
variation of hardcore with a passion that almost defies description. That all three bands are able to do so
utilising reasonably conventional song structures (well, not so much The Mars Volta!) and more than a degree of
melody has resulted in some of the more adventurous and memorable music
recorded this century starting with the final At The Drive In album;
(# 708) At The Drive
In – Relationship Of Command (2000)
This is truly one of the best albums released during the
last 15 years, a superb blending of sheer power, melody, intriguing lyrics and
lots of little left field touches to keep the whole thing constantly
interesting. Arcarsenal and Pattern
Against User forms a useful one two punch to open proceedings but are almost
quickly forgotten as soon as the jerky start/stop intro to One Armed Scissor kicks
in. It is one of those absolute classic slow verse/raging chorus tune that
Nirvana loved but here is almost raised to an art form especially with the repeated chorus chants of
Cut Away/Cut Away/Send transmission from the one armed scissor. I have absolutely no idea what it means but
it is memorable and fun to chant along with.
It segues nicely into the equally schizophrenic Sleepwalk Capsules
before the tempo, but not the intensity or power, is slowed by Invalid Letter
Dept with yet another memorable chorus.
Mannequin Republic restores the manic pace before an eerie phone car
heralds the throbbing bass and tom toms that power Enfilade, another
slow/fast/slow/fast number. Iggy Pop guests to lend his vocals to Rolodex
Propaganda and a lengthy Hollywood sounding intro leads into the heady
Quarantined whilst Cosomonaut, Non-zero Possibility and Catacombs attempt to
musically summarise the album in just three cuts.
(# 709) Sparta –
Wiretap Scars (2002)
After At The Drive In’s break up, drummer Tony Hajjar and bassist Paul Hinojos and
guitarist Jim Ward and this was their full length debut. The band’s sound is essentially that of a
streamlined At The Drive In shorn of the left field excursions but keeping the
essential power of the band. As a result, they come across as a slightly more
commercially sounding version of hardcore veterans Fugazi. Indeed of the tracks on this album, Air could
pass for At The The Drive In while Mye
and Sans Cosm could easily be mistaken
for Fugazi. Catacract and Red Alibi is
the sound of the band finding its own style, whilst RX Coup adds a vague reggae
sensibility and Echodyne Harmonic suggests band members had been listening to
Krautrock.
(#710) The Mars Volta – De-loused In The
Comatorium (2003)
The remaining
members of At The Drive In, vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar
Rodriguez-Lopez formed The Mars Volta using the power of their previous band as
the basis for what could only be described as a version of prog rock with hints
of jazz. They also attempted to bring
some respectability to the notion of a concept album, this (their debut)
apparently being about the degeneration of a mind due to drug use. The lengthier tracks all hit the mark. Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of) employs the
ATDI slow/fast template to thrilling effect with some great percussion,
ominous keyboards and an out there vocal by Bixler-Zavala. Drunkship Of Lanterns is early Santana retooled for the new
millennium and the 12 minute Cicatriz Esp covers so much ground musically that
by its end its scarcely believable it was contained within the one track. Televators
slowed the tempo down effectively
and the closing Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt could have fitted snugly on
any number of 60’s Haight-Asbury albums.
No comments:
Post a Comment