Music Review: Welcome Back, At The Drive-In
Before Pierce The Veil became a band identified with Texas-core, about 20 years ago there was a band called At The Drive-In started its legacy with an album called Acrobatic Tenement. The album got a perfect score of 10/10 from the UK online magazine website named Drowned In Sound, although later revised to 8/10 in 2013. Zach, one of the music critics who often writes reviews on the Sputnik Music site, calls this album a scene about teenage life with vast knowledge of vocabulary and their passion for metaphors.
Although many of their fans are less amenable to calling this album the best album At The Drive-In, the Acrobatic Tenement album has formed a strong foundation for At The Drive-In sound form on the next album. At The Drive-In are Cedrix Bixler (vocals), Omar Rodriguez (guitar and vocals), Paul Hinojos (bass), Tony Hajjar (drums), and Keeley Davis (guitar and vocals). Formed since 1993 in El Paso, Texas, At The Drive-In underwent many line-up changes at the band's early age. Recorded only Cedrix Bixler is left from the original line-up At The Drive-In, other is the result of unloading pairs of personnel that occurred in the period 1994-1997. It was recorded in 1996 that the line-up At The Drive-In was just beginning to stabilize, when Tony Hajjar and Paul Hinojos came in to replace Ryan Sawer, Kenny Hooper, and Omar Rodriguez switched positions to fill guitar accompany Jim Ward, having previously become a band bassist this.
Using the formation, At The Drive-In began developing a solid underground fanbase. Their fans were mostly scattered in the western part of the United States who decided to love the band after attending a small show from At The Drive-In in a basement as well as a local venue. Using the same way ultimately the popularity of At The Drive-In increasingly skyrocketing. Volunteering the audience who came to their gigs, began to spread a chain message about At The Drive-In to their other relatives.
The result, only a few years after the band was formed, the gigs they do always succeed in sucking around 100 to 350 spectators. Interestingly, quoted from their biography, one of the shows that changed their destiny actually happened in a gigs with a total of nine people, where one of the spectators who attended at that time was one of the employees of the Flipside record label. The encounter in a micro gigs was the one that eventually led At The Drive-In to release their debut album titled Acrobatic Tenement under Flipside Records.
In fact, the success of At The Drive-In in the western United States does not make things more smooth. At that crucial moment, Flipside Records closes their record label division and Offtime Records, which released their EP El Gron Orgo in 1997, did not have the healthy finances to release a full album, making At The Drive-In losing financial support for releasing an album both of them. Frustrated, maybe that's what At The Drive-In thought at the time. The various ways they did to release a second album, recorded in their biography, "At The Drive-In literally approached almost all of the independent labels in their minds."
The result is nil, no one label is interested in music from At The Drive-In at that time. When that hope almost vanished, it was then that Bob and Michelle Becker of Fearless Records saw At The Drive-In appearance as they unlocked the gigs of Supernova in a bar called Club Mesa. Communication was established between Fearless Records, which was then almost synonymous with pop punk and finally an approved contract, resulting in a second album titled In / Casino / Out, released on June 3, 1998.
In / Casino / Out is a maturation form from At The Drive- In, if we listen to this album carefully, we can hear how this album has abundant emotions and the band members really sounded as a cohesive unit. Interestingly, the album was recorded live without overdub though, the result In / Casino / Out into an album that managed to record the intensity of emotion At The Drive-In when playing live very clearly.
Rolling Stone magazine in a list of 40 Best Emo Albums of All Time put this album in position 20, a tribute that is very appropriate for all their efforts in the recording studio. In a way, this is one of the essential emo albums that are forbidden to miss for you fans of emo music. Although glorious praise, apparently Cedrix Bixler claimed not been so satisfied with the outcome In / Casino / Out. In an interview conducted with Punknews, Bixler admitted that they were only able to execute about 30 percent of their ideas due to time constraints, but he also praised other band personnel as they managed to cope with the pressure very well. After the success of In / Casino / Out and a tour along with Rage Against The Machine, At The Drive-In re-entered the recording studio to record the third and most successful album in their discography, Relationship of Command. Blake Butler of Allmusic writes, "This album combines an aggressive side of hardcore with melodic impulses, harmonious and emotive vocals, and surreal lyrics." The album Relationship of Command is seen as a more complete version of the two previous albums.
More than that, the album is referred to as one of the most complete albums on the entire rock spectrum. NME crowned the album in the 12th position of 100 most important albums of the 2000-2010 decade and not to miss, Kerrang put this album on the order of 37 on the most important album list of all time. The impact resulting from Relationship of Command is so widespread, in just a matter of months, At The Drive-In became one of the most talked about names of rock lovers around the world. At The Drive-In, the band that started their career in an airless basement managed to change their destiny by playing in front of millions of national television audiences when they were invited by Connan O'Brien and David Letterman in their respective talkshows. Even one of their songs on the album Relationship of Command, titled "One Armed Scissor" got a place in the radio circulation regularly and had time to enjoy the sweet airplay of MTV which in that year was in the booming phase. Pitchfork himself crowned the song "One Armed Scissor" into the list of best songs in 2000, putting the song in position 255.
The success of maintstream they achieved unfortunately lasts very short. In November 2000, At The Drive-In was involved in a traffic accident when the van they were riding lost control and overturned. Although not the main cause of the breakup At The Drive-In, the incident caused a mental shock for personnel At The Drive-In. Various events that contribute to mental and psychological fatigue are beginning to happen to them, for example when they decide to leave their setlist at the Big Day Out festival, Australia due to unbridled spectators. They have also canceled five dates on a European tour for reasons of mental fatigue. The peak occurred in March 2011, at the peak of popularity and just finishing a world tour, At The Drive-In finally completely disbanded. Guitarist Omar Rodriguez said, "After a six-year cycle without pause in recording the album and going on tour, we decided to take a break. We need time to reevaluate, become human again and decide if we want to play music again. ".
On a separate occasion, vocalist Cedrix Bixler claimed to be responsible for the break-up At The Drive-In, several times in an interview he claimed to be a disagreement about the musical direction of a hammer that decided whether At The Drive-In would continue or not . Cedrix admits that he wants the next album At The Drive-In to sound like Pink Floyd's album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn while the other members want their music to go towards rock alternatives. The Disband At The Drive In then incubate The Mars Volta and Sparta, until Antemasque in 2014.
In 2012, more than ten years after they broke up, for the first time At The Drive-In did a reunion. Unmitigated, they immediately took part in major festivals such as Coachella, Lollapalooza, Fuji Rock, and Reading and Leeds Festival. Although several times evasive will actually play together again, through a post on Facebook on January 21, 2016, At The Drive-In confirm that they will re-release a new album. Their drummer, Tony Hajjar describes their reunion with a touching sentence, "This is home, and it's nice to come back to it and feel so positive about it." The first song they released after the announcement was a song titled "Governed By Contagions". A successful song shows that At The Drive-In is still able to write progressive songs with compelling compositions. The song is full of emotion, touching the antemic side of hardcore music that you can also find on the album Relationship of Command.
Listen to the song "Governed By Contagions" below or you can download for free through their official website at #atthedriveinmusic.com.