Album Review: At The Drive-In - Inter Alia

Not supposedly a band you'd expect to flog a nostalgia ticket given their uncompromising work, At The Drive-In have gradually rekindled that flame and rediscovered making music with each other again.

Finally, after 17 years, their follow-up to Relationship Of Command is here, and it's a visionary album of unhinged aggression.

The essential formula that made At The Drive-In a force to be reckoned with remains intact; specifically Cedric Bixler-Zavala's electrified vocals running riot over a near-suffocating assault of guitar and drums. The missing ingredient is longtime guitarist Jim Ward, however Keeley Davis and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez give such a competent performance that his absence is barely felt. There's some surprisingly candid material, such as Incurably Innocent, which is in Bixler-Zavala's words "a song about sexual abuse and being able to finally speak out".

What's hardly a surprise though is the uninterrupted stream of energy and volcanic rage, particularly on the US election-inspired Governed By Contagions. While Inter Alia isn't quite as poised on the bleeding edge as Relationship Of Command was, it's nonetheless a febrile statement for our volatile times.