AT THE DRIVE-IN Acrobatic Tenement CD (2012)

Before Relationship of Command. Before the split. Before The Mars Volta went fully off the rails into prog cosmos and Sparta went the other direction into something more controlled. There was this.

Acrobatic Tenement is At the Drive-In's 1996 debut, and it's rawer and stranger than the album that made them famous. Cedric Bixler-Zavala's vocals are already unhinged in the best possible way, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez is already building guitar parts that shouldn't function but somehow do, and the whole thing sounds like it was recorded in a room that was maybe on fire. This 2016 reissue brings it to a new generation of post-hardcore obsessives, the kind who already own the discography but want a physical copy to actually hold. For anyone who thinks aggressive music needs to also be genuinely weird, this is essential listening.

2016 reissue. Full length CD. US origin. Recorded 1996, first released on Flipside Records.

Fans of: The Mars Volta, Sparta, The Blood Brothers, Glassjaw, Refused.