End Of The Decade: James from Rolo Tomassi on At The Drive-In’s Relationship of Command

Rolo Tomassi

Having been born towards the end of the 1980s, the last 10 years has served as my musical upbringing. As far as I can remember, I started buying CDs and records regularly at the turn of the century and have been an avid collector of music since. While it may be an obvious and a record that will undoubtedly make a lot of peoples lists, my choice for album of the decade would have to be At The Drive-In‘s Relationship of Command.

I missed out on this band when they were current, preferring at the time to listen to stuff like Blink 182. I was initially turned onto the band by comparisons that Hundred Reasons were given. The latter were the first band I saw play live (supporting Muse at Doncaster Dome in ’01 I think) and I’d say they were the first band I really got my teeth into. I’d read a lot of reviews were they were compared to this band At The Drive-In. It was a name that cropped up a fair amount so I did the decent thing of picking up the most recent album I could find by them. Needless to say, in hindsight, the comparisons ended with afros.

The CD was like nothing I’d listened to before. Everything from the way it was structured, all the weird sounds they had going on in certain songs, the crazy guitar work and most especially the vocals. I’d never heard bands that had such throaty, impassioned yelps and screams smattered about their music before and such carefully crafted obtuse lyrics. Admittedly, I’m still not entirely sure what they’re singing about but it has the same effect on me now when I hear it as it did then.

I’d started playing in a band and it made me want to change what I was doing with music altogether. A lot of people have said they feel the same, that this record was almost a Year Zero for them; it gave us new ways of making hardcore sound different and to a large degree, interesting and accessible.

This album has had a huge effect on me personally and turned me onto so much more music. I feel it shaped out a clear progression for a lot of modern hardcore bands to follow. It set the precedent and totally raised the bar for intelligent guitar bands and their influence on alternative rock music. Almost 10 years after this album’s release, its influence is just as apparent as it ever has been.

No related posts.