Angry suburban teens around the USA were into At The Drive-In. Not quite screamo or emo with influences from The Smiths and Black Flagg there's was nothing in the late 90s to compare them to.
When there is nothing to do in a small town like El Paso, Texas were ATDI was based respectfully before they disbanded and went on to create other successful bands (The Mars Volta and Sparta) one can see why they're angry. Teenagers are naturally angry because NO ONE understands or at least this is what one would be led to believe after listening to This Station is Non-Operational. Loud and fast paced. Singer/screamer, Cedric Bixler-Zavala, wails about things that no longer seem that important. The only time there seems to be true sadness of a man that has lived an actual hard life is when they cover The Smiths "This Night has Opened My Eyes" were Zavala coos , "You did a bad thing and I'm not happy and I'm not sad." When one listen to This Station is Non-Operational on a nostalgic binge they will feel the same way.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I know 250 words is hard to work with, but this seemed a bit rushed. There were a few grammatical mistakes throughout. Otherwise, I thought your review was decent! I liked the sarcasm about teenagers and how "no one" understands them. Your feelings about the album were very clear.
ReplyDeleteI've always had mixed emotions about this band. It's interesting to see a negative review which meant that you liked the album because going after the lyrical content of songs that you do like can be very hard to do as a fan. I think it's more common to see these forced negative reviews go after a bands album in comparison to other albums from that band that were "better". You don't hold back. Well done.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with schuylerm in that this piece had some structural problems. The intro was confusing, and not having paragraphs made it hard to follow. I can tell that you know what you're talking about and you seem to be very witty. You should just make sure your opinions are strong and clear.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to review an album you like and sometimes even harder to admit to it's flaws, and you did just that. I love ATDI and I can agree with a lot of points here so good work.
ReplyDeleteThe flow of the review isn't so smooth but other than that you did a good job of describing the band's origins and the low points of their album.
ReplyDelete