iSound

It takes barely a minute into "Arc Arsenal," the first track of AT THE DRIVE-IN's Grand Royal debut, Relationship Of Command, for all but the most jaded and spiritually bereft listener to realize: Something authentic and vital is happening here. And it's not only that familiar revolutionary spirit that typifies generations of musical revolutionaries from Guthrie to Dylan to Scott-Heron to Rage to Fugazi... True, that fire burns bright throughout every second of Relationship..., but there's something different here. AT THE DRIVE-IN's furor is informed at nearly every turn by a unique innocence; where their spiritual forebears offered up reflections on backlogs of experience, AT THE DRIVE-IN are still compiling, observing, still in the midst of the conflict. Resolution does not factor into these songs. "It's sort of cinematic," says vocalist Cedric Bixler of the record's narrative thread. "Not cinematic like a Roman gladiator movie, but like Fellini's Satyric...