Rewind: At the Drive-In, Relationship of Command

[At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command]

Rewind takes a look at past Musicwhore.org reviews to see how they hold up today. The albums featured on Rewind were part of my collection, then sold for cash only to be reacquired later.

Once again, quantity trumped quality, this time with my review for Relationship of Command by At the Drive-In.

Given its length and lack of opinion, the review did nothing more than meet a quota. By the time I got around to writing about the album, the band had broken up.

(Now that I’m writing about them again, they’ve just released a new album. Of course, I’m writing this entry beforehand, so I haven’t heard it yet.)

I picked up Relationship of Command because I had listened to a few tracks at a Tower Records listening station, and I was struck by how much At the Drive-In reminded me of NUMBER GIRL, which I mention in the review.

To be honest, it couldn’t dislodge all the Japanese indie rock that monopolized my car CD player. NUMBER GIRL, SUPERCAR, Cocco and Shiina Ringo released career-making albums in 2000, and the fact At the Drive-In didn’t sing in Japanese was a strike against them.

Relationship of Command is also an album that I can’t queue for casual listening. It screams for attention — quite literally — and it’s tough not to get immersed in all that agitation. When it came time for a collection purge, it was a prime candidate.

Oddly enough, I started to miss the album. Despite not internalizing it as thoroughly as, well,  NUMBER GIRL, I felt a bit of regret having let it go.

So when I spotted it at a Friends of the Seattle Public Library Book Sale, I brought it back into the fold.

It’s still not an album I can play casually, but I’m not holding that against it.

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