One of the topics of discussion at the Ogden house this past weekend was how great the band At The Drive In was and especially how fucking spectacular their album Relationship of Command was.  This though was unfortunately the last album that would be released by the band before they would part their seperate ways to form bands Sparta and The Mars Volta.  But they did however go out with a bang to say the least and really this album is one of the most influential albums for most rock bands today and a career highlight for the band.

The album opener “Arc Arsenal” hits hard and is so fast pumping and aggressive it’s a perfect song for a heavy segment in any surf, snow or skate video.  Not only that but the album single and uber popular ATDI song “One Armed Scissor” gives the beginning of the album the feel of one hell of a ride that gets you excited for each song approaching.  Midway through you have cuts like “Sleepwalk Capsules” and one of my personal favorites, the ballad if you will, “Invalid Litter Department.”  But ultimately you can go through this album front to back and not skip a track because it’s that good and essential to check out for any Mars Volta fan considering most of the songs are the progressive stage the lead singer and guitarist wanted to go towards.

This unfortunately led to the bands break up, lead singer and main guitarist wanted to go in a more psychedelic proggressive direction (think early Pink Floyd).  Where the remaining members wanted to stick with the fast paced, Experimental Punk sound they had invented and finely tuned.  This lead obviously to the creation of Sparta and the now hugely popular Mars Volta.  Their have been rumors circulating that a reunion could be possible but they were shot down immediately by Jim Ward (ATDI co-founder and rythem guitarist) who had stated he was so busy with his other projects he had no time to even consider making things work out.

Sometimes things are better left untouched though and really they went out with a huge fucking bang and it’s better to keep thing the way they are.  Mars Volta is doing their thing while Sparta is doing theirs and they just have seem to have grown so apart it may not even be the same band if they did get back together.  Either way check this album out if you haven’t heard it or dust it off the old shelf and give it a listen again, it rips!

Tracklist:

01. arc arsenal
02. pattern against user
03. one armed scissor
04. sleepwalk capsules
05. invalid litter dept.
06. mannequin republic
07. enfilade
08. rolodex propaganda
09. quarantined
10. cosmonaut
11. non-zero possibility