Picture this: You’re sitting on your couch, using the remote to flick through various songs on YouTube. You’re bored—you’ve heard everything the algorithm is spitting at you a hundred times before. You want something new. Among dark, pixelated thumbnails of performances from bands like The Strokes and Queens Of The Stone Age, a sketchy, dandelion-yellow illustration of a horse and a cityscape catches your eye. The video itself is the audio to a song entitled “One Armed Scissor” by a band called At The Drive-In. Out of boredom and curiosity, you decide to give it a shot.
The song starts out with a powerful, pumping guitar riff before quickly devolving into a bubbling, discordant verse.
“Yes this is the campaign/ Slithered entrails in the cargo bay” a half spoken, half sung voice announces above dueling, cacophonous guitar lines. The gory sci-fi lyrics “Tease this amputation / Splintered larynx / It has access now” are the last thing you hear before the initial guitar riff comes back and the song explodes into its equally incendiary and catchy chorus. “Cut away! Cut away!” A second vocalist yells while the lead singer tows the line between singing and a war cry with the lyrics “Send transmission to the one armed scissor.”
After the repeated gut jabs from the chorus, the second verse momentarily eases up on the fervor, taking its foot off the pedal just enough to give you a chance to breathe, while introducing descending guitar and bass lines and the now fully sung, intensely melodic lyrics “Unknown origin/ Is this the comfort of being afraid?” Eventually, the song starts to build itself up again— the second vocalist screams in the background, the lead singer breaks the melody and begins to yell, and the drum and bass start to pound- slamming on the gas and sending you full throttle into the next chorus.
The bridge breaks down into just guitar and vocals, yelping “Cause I’m a million miles away / Will you get this letter?” One guitar artfully arpeggiates around the singer while the other oozes and weaves between the two melodies, all before the drums and bass come back and send the song driving off a cliff for its final chorus. For the final few moments, both vocalists come together, one singing and one yelling—with the initial riff being played one more time, and you being left to sit in the smoke of what just occurred, before you while a strange outro of minimal piano accompanied by the sounds of breaking glass and futuristic sound effects plays out for another 30 seconds.
Now my dear friends, this fair scene was actually my introduction to At The Drive-In. And I enjoyed my introduction enough to give the full album, Relationship of Command a listen. This of course is a double edged sword, as although I now have a new contender for one of my favorite albums of all time, I also have now have been imbued with what one could only describe as “At The Drive-In brainrot,” with my current obsession being a band that hasn’t played a show in seven years with a dead fanbase. Unfortunately, there’s not much I can do about the band reuniting. However, I can try to convert as many people as I can into At The Drive-In-ism, and I think I can most easily do that by explaining why I love Relationship so much.
To give some background information, the line-up for this album is the same for most of the band’s history: Cedric Bixler-Zavala on lead vocals, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez on lead guitar, Jim Ward on rhythm guitar and backing vocals, Paul Hinojos on bass, and Tony Hajjar on drums. To put this into the context of “One Armed Scissor,” Bixler-Zavala’s commanding shouts and esoteric lyrics are what are on the forefront of the track. Rodriguez-Lopez’s bizarre and slimy guitar lines juxtapose with Ward’s more straightforward, melodic style of playing, while his heavy, vocal-fried yells interweave with Bixler-Zavala. Although this trio are what gives the scissor its sharpness, it couldn’t do any cutting without the powerful, laid-on-thick elements of Hinojos’s steady, rich bass tone and Hajjar’s pounding drumming. Although the presence of some members are more in-your-face than others, each person that played on this album is still absolutely integral to its sound- if any of them were even slightly different the result would be unrecognizable.
There are two types of songs on the album— straightforward, ripping headbangers, and slowburners that methodically ebb and flow before they go up in flames. In my opinion, both types are done to absolute perfection. The ragers expertly maneuver themselves between being bludgeoning and perfectly sharp— like being beat with a baseball bat adorned with razor blades, while containing quieter moments that showcase Bixler-Zavala’s diabolically catchy vocal melodies and acrobatic range. On the other hand, the slower songs churn and contemplate while slowly being set ablaze by the band’s ever-present confrontational demeanor. The juxtaposition between these two types of songs provides a listening experience that gives the audience a full emotional breadth and provides important breaks in the otherwise total onslaught of raucous guitars, explosive drums, steady bass and the soaring, snarling vocals.
The record itself begins with a banger—the explosive and foreboding “Arcarsenal,” which slowly opens Pandora’s Box with skittering maraca, creeping guitar and war-like drums. More sounds begin to be layered on, including intense breathing and a second, more concrete guitar part. Finally, a bouncy call from Hinojos gets a mirrored response from the band that transforms the unnerving creepiness of the song’s slow burn intro into a blistering reality. “I must have read a thousand faces / I must have robbed them of their cause” Bixler-Zavala shouts into the mic, his freneticism and paranoia being made apparent as he kindly informs you to “Beware” as his delivery gets more and more intense. “Arcaresnal” consistently pummels you for the next couple minutes, until over an angular guitar and rich piano chords, Bixler-Zavala temporarily breaks from his break-neck trance to inquire “Have you ever tasted skin / Sink your teeth in it?” Before both he and the rest of the band begin their warning once again- “Beware” delivered at full mania while the band slams away.
Nothing else on the album ever approaches the full dread-laden fervor of “Arcarsenal,” but it does include several other skull-buzzing behemoths of sound: “One Armed Scissor” and “Sleepwalk Capsules” keep up the break-neck pace of the, with the latter slamming the listener with scorching verses about protests against authoritarian governments, describing them as having the audacity as “Dripping with drool from the nerve of this sentence.” “Sleepwalk Capsules” is another one of the straightforward heavy hitters on the album- while I’d be comfortable with showing my “normie” friends lighter tunes on the record, “Sleepwalk” and similar songs are non-stop onslaughts of pure adrenaline from beginning to end.
“Mannequin Republic” douses you with feedback, beating drums, jagged guitars and Bixler-Zavala’s signature bite create a total wrecking ball that doesn’t stop until everything is levelled. In the wreckage, we get a phone call from post-punk legend Iggy Pop, who kindly introduces the song “Enfilade.” Unlike most of the album so far, “Enfilade” doesn’t immediately begin by throwing itself into chaos, the song is more strategic than that. “This could last us all a lifetime…” Bixler-Zavala quietly sings, with a voice warped as though he was singing through a fan. “Try to catch us if you can,” he taunts, the bare instrumentation of bongos and Hinojos’s dancy bassline catch you off guard as the band get back to what they do best. Bixler-Zavala’s signature snarl returns for the anthemic chorus, shouting “Sacrifice on railroad tracks” while Rodriguez-Lopez and Ward back him up to entail of a “Freight-freight train comin.’” Among harmonized, distorted guitars, Bixler-Zavala dishes out various threats about making “…sure that nobody else is with you / If you wish to see them alive again” and threatening that “In basements we will hide.” One of the most unique moments on the album is during the instrumental break before the last chorus, the aforementioned bongos and bass get combined with a middle eastern inspired melodica melody, an instrument which doesn’t appear anywhere else on the album.
Although so much of the album is packed with pure heaviness, there are a couple of sonically lighter palette cleansers that still hook and jab, but with a little less ferocity, and dare I say a little more silliness than some of the other tracks. “Pattern Against User” bangs and bounces through verses, with Bixler-Zavala shouting about his relationship with intravenous drugs, “Hypodermic people poking fun at the living / Please lift the weight out of this, it takes the weight out of living” before Rodriguez-Lopez’s jet-engine guitar tone launches into the incredibly catchy chorus with vocals shared between Ward and Bixler-Zavala. The song’s aggressive punk nature melts away for the bridge, showcasing both Bixler-Zavala’s powerful high range and his ability to sing infectious melodies before snapping back into its natural punchiness.
“Rolodex Propaganda,” is arguably the most straight up weird song on the album, although I find it to be delightfully strange. Featuring comical backing vocals from Rodriguez-Lopez; his bizarre delivery behind Bixler-Zavala and on his own for each varying “Manuscript replica,” combined with an aggressive egg shaker gives the track an intense topsy-turvy feeling. Although if there’s one thing “Rolodex Propaganda” can emphasize, it’s the band’s pension for creating aggressive earworms. The electric chorus’s synthlines and Bixler-Zavala’s insanely catchy melodies provide an elite payoff for the verse’s silly sensibilities.
The crown jewel of the album, in my humble opinion, lies in one of the slow-burners, “Invalid Litter Dept.” The song is about the disappearances and murders of hundreds of women in Juarez, Mexico—the city immediately across the border from the band’s hometown of El Paso, Texas. Instead of announcing its presence by slapping you in the face with raucous guitars or vocals, “Invalid Litter Dept.” starts out with somber piano chords and layers a slow, mournful guitar. This tonal left turn from the previous tracks signifies a new emotional depth that the band hasn’t shown yet. In his style of half spoken, half sung and usual esotericism, Bixler-Zavala details the stories of these women, the circumstances around their death, and the lack of action from the government that should be protecting them: “Intravenously polite / It was the walkie-talkies that knocked the pins down / As their shoes gripped the dirt floor / In the silhouette of dying.” He sings above repetitive, scattered guitars, while also featuring a more subdued refrain sung by Ward and Rodriguez-Lopez; “Dancing on the corpses’ ashes” about the men who do nothing but relish in the gender-based violence around them. Bixler-Zavala’s delivery up to this point is far more subdued than what we’ve seen so far, he sounds impassioned and angry about what’s occurring- but he’s holding his feelings back.
An ascending refrain from Ward and Rodriguez-Lopez opens the flood gates before the wave of “Invalid Litter Dept.”’s chorus knocks you over and carries you away- pounding drums and a poignant guitar melody surround you while the Bixler-Zavala’s rage and sadness are funneled into an electric delivery that drowns you in his emotions. “On my way nails broke and fell into the / Wishing well, wishing well, wishing well” he shouts, backed up by Rodriguez-Lopez and Ward. The wave of emotions is wiped up before the second verse, with the same melancholic guitar giving the listener a chance to catch their breath. Bixler continues to lambast unwillingness to stop these murders- “They had defected and been excommunicated / And all the pulses were subverted / And they made sure that the obituaries showed pictures of smoke stacks” illustrates that the women murdered weren’t valued outside of their work in factories that expelled long plumes of smoke. He mentions that “…the federales performed / Their custodial customs quite well” to make apparent that Mexico’s federal security are corrupt and complicit in the murders.
After emerging from another deeply cathartic chorus, the decision is made to swap out the band’s usually very catchy, vocal-forward bridges for a quiet, contemplative instrumental section, with a piano melody that gently descends like falling rain. Soon, Bixler-Zavala returns to the microphone and repeats the first verse of the song. The last chorus ends with a pained, emphatic “On my way” and quietly singing the refrain—this moment of unfiltered melancholy is there, perhaps to give the listener a final chance to catch their breath before Hinojos comes crashing in with a thick and steady bassline while Hajjar slams on the drums behind him. “Callous heels numbed in travel / Endless maps made by their scalpels” Bixler-Zavala yells, ending his a blood-curdling scream for all the women made victims to senseless violence.
When I did some research about the album after I listened to it for the first time, the genre I saw it defined as was “post-hardcore.” I don’t think I’ve ever listened to a post-hardcore album before, and after Relationship, I don’t really think I need to. If I were to describe Relationship of Command in one word, it would be “unrelenting.” From the moment “Arcarsenal” truly begins to the final seconds of “Non-Zero Possibility,” At The Drive-In doesn’t take their foot off the pedal once- although some tracks may be slower or less anarchistic, those songs still smother you in their power. This may be why, on a personal level, this album feels tailor-made to me. It has everything I love in a rock record; angular and energetic guitars, vicious vocals, and a perfect balance of adrenaline and introspection.
When Relationship came out in 2000, it was wildly successful— and it brought a previously obscure group into the limelight. This new found fame did not bode well for the band, and for a variety of reasons, they would go on an indefinite hiatus in 2001. This indefinite hiatus would eventually turn into a break-up, and from this break-up, came two new bands. Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez would form prog influenced, genre-defying The Mars Volta. Their musical partnership continues to this day, with the band’s most recent release, Lucro Sucio; Los ojos del vacio coming out in 2025. On the other hand, Ward, Hajjar and Hinojos would form the emo-influenced outlet Sparta, which has gone through a revolving door of members since its inception.
Generally, I find it hard to quantify a score of anything I enjoy, so I don’t really do numerical ratings. However, if I were to give any record a 10/10, it would certainly be Relationship of Command.
