Featured Essay: At the Drive-In: The Relationship of Command

by Robert Dean

The noise is frantic like you cannot hold onto the movements, the rhythm, that what you’re experiencing is unique and wholly it’s own. It’s jarring, there are no smooth edges as if it’s the sound recording of a Cold War scientist and a ghost screwed, and this is the audio representation of their moans. The melodies howls into the void while reaching for the cosmos in a way that dares Sagan to grab hold of God’s robe and tell that motherfucker to ride. 

The glorious noise belongs to At the Drive-In, and the record is “ \Relationship of Command”, a magnum opus of noise, punk, and mathematical equations of the unknown. 

At the Drive-In released “Relationship of Command” on September 12, 2000. I had just turned 19 the month before, standing at a crossroads of hearing this and The Refused’ “The Shape of Punk to Come” – both fundamentally changing me, daring me to re-examine what music was, what I thought songs could sound like. With its raw intensity and aggressive emotion, “Relationship of Command” is a testament to its time; many have tried to capture the lightning that is “One Armed Scissor,” the band’s biggest hit, but no one has been able to harness what the five punks from El Paso, Texas could back at the beginning of the new millennium.

The album was recorded between January and March 2000 at Indigo Ranch Studios in Malibu, California. Produced by Ross Robinson, known for his unconventional methods (mentally breaking members of Korn and Glassjaw), the recording process aimed to capture the band’s dynamic live presence. Notably, punk icon Iggy Pop contributed guest vocals on the tracks “Rolodex Propaganda” and “Enfilade.” While Robinson had recorded Slipknot’s debut, it made a big noise for the masses, what At The Drive-In did was give a lease on life for those holding onto the spirit of Fugazi.

Linkin Park, Papa Roach, and Limp Bizkit were the household names while Brittney Spears and Justin Timberlake were the stars of the moment. For those who discovered At The Drive-In, it was a different world. Sure, Deftones dropped “White Pony” and Thursday gave us “Full Collapse,” but neither have the singularity of this record, despite White Pony being the best Deftones record by far – they have remained in action. At The Drive-In walked away soon after the record hit the racks. 

Upon its release, “Relationship of Command” received widespread critical acclaim. It’s cited as a seminal work in the post-hardcore genre and has appeared in numerous “best of” lists, including NME’s Albums of the Decade and Kerrang! ’s most influential albums. Alternative Press ranked “One Armed Scissor” at number one on their list of the best 100 singles from the 2000s. From the first note of the record, it never stops; it never slows down emotionally, even in its most fragile moments; the bending of guitar strings sounds downright creepy at times while the bass and drums act as a beat against their angst, that this fetid mix can act as a salve when at the time, bands like Good Charlotte were making a splash. We did not like Good Charlotte. We liked At the Drive-in. The way they played, how Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s guitar techniques were not average, there were no chug riffs, no fast punk, color-by-numbers moments straight out of the “Let’s Pretend We’re Bad Religion. Paul Hinojos’ bass lines and Tony Hajjar’s drumming create the mathematical foundations, the interplay between Jim Ward’s rhythm guitar and Rodriguez-Lopez’s leads, all of this created something that was a reckoning beyond being a punk band as showcased in “Sleepwalk Capsules.” 

The record has such a lasting impact because it hits you like a ton of bricks; there’s something so rabid, so unlike anything else compared to the sound of the band. One minute, it’s maracas on “Arcarsenal” or the haunting basslines of “Enfilade” with its ransom note into – which, back in the day, was my voice mail message, no call me back, no leave your number at the beep – it was a random, creepy man whispering into the phone:

“Hello mother leopard, I have your cub

You must protect her, but that will be expensive

10,000 kola nuts, wrapped in brown paper

Midnight, behind the box

I’ll be the hyena, you’ll see.”

I still don’t know what this means, but I love it. Just the same, I don’t know what the lyrics mean; whatever Cedric Bixler Zavala was saying was like reading off poetry for astronauts, spoken in a dialect that is for Martians. But the music was intense, and I was the perfect age for it; I was a hardcore kid with a punk problem, and this band pushed me to think differently, to experiment with my thoughts of how a song could be, while I liked Sonic Youth and the Jesus Lizard, At The Drive-in produced a noise that was signature; it’s elemental and it’s slightly scary because it’s dissonant, layered, that a kid can’t pick up a guitar and rip out “Pattern Against User” like they can “Heart Shaped Box” and that distinction is essential, that what they did was a stamp in the cement that even though they broke up shortly after the record’s release, you were always left to wonder what At The Drive-in could’ve been. Yes, in the break up of the band, we got Sparta and The Mars Volta, but while both have their pluses, neither have that vibrancy that ATDI had. 

No matter how you try to place anything new against what the “Relationship of Command” is, it’s so hard. Kids will discover that record and cherish it because it’s like a kung fu kick to the neck; it’ll last beyond blogs and best of lists because the sound is honest, it dares the listener to drop pretext, to take the ride and let everything go. 

You can say a lot of bands are influenced by what At The Drive-in did, but has anyone recorded anything like “The Relationship of Command”? Not that I know of and I’m a music nerd. There’s so much identity to what they did back in 2000 that twenty-five years later, it stands alone as a body of work that’s signature rather than popping on the Misfits at the bar and singing along to “Skulls” – this is just different and it’s obvious. 

I still listen to this record in awe, not because it’s an all-time favorite for me, but because of how fearless it is; while people laud The Mars Volta as this genre-bending psychedelic force, At The Drive-in will always be the band asked to play the festivals, to reunite because they stand as one of those bands whose importance will be signed into the halls of the punk rock hall of infamy with a butcher knife.

Robert Dean is a journalist, cultural editorialist, and self-proclaimed enlightened dumbass. His work has appeared in over 50 publications worldwide, including MIC, Eater, Fatherly, Yahoo, Austin American-Statesman, Houston Chronicle, Consequence of Sound, Ozy, USA Today, and Channel Void. He’s appeared on CNN and NPR and currently serves as a features writer for Culture Clash and The Cosmic Clash, as well as a weekly political columnist for The Carter County Times. He lives in Austin, Texas, and loves ice cream, koalas, and calling out bullshit. His collection of essays, Existential Thirst Trap, is out now.

I Have That on Vinyl is a reader supported publication. If you enjoy what’s going on here please consider donating to the site’s writer fund: venmo // paypal