Wilful contrarian that I am, I avoided anything connected to this band for ages. Owing to all the hype that surrounded them at the time, I just assumed they wouldn't be as good as people were making out (they were getting praised by NME for fuck's sake), so I steered clear.
Then, sometime in 2002, as I was downloading some music from Bearshare (remember that?), my curiosity finally got the better of me and I decided to add a random 'Drive In' track to my feed. The track in question was 'Proxima Centauri' from an EP called 'Vaya'. As you can probably guess by this very entry, I fucking loved it. I was immediately struck by the kinetic energy and drive of the song (no pun intended), it wasn't what I was expecting at all, to be honest. I was also very impressed by the production, which to my ears was reminiscent of some of Steve Albini's works thanks to its spacious "live" sound. On the strength of what I heard, I went out and bought the EP. Yes, you read that right: whilst I could've easily downloaded the whole thing for free, I actually went out and bought it.
'Vaya' got a lot of play that summer (a summer I've spoken of in earlier entries), its propulsive flow was cathartic and cleansing, helping me as I worked through my troubles, and its seven songs have remained with me ever since.
Having enjoyed this EP so much, I dived into the rest of ATDI's catalogue and discovered an abundance of albums and EPs that varied in quality, but nothing came close to 'Vaya'. In fact, I was rather disappointed with 'Relationship of Command' (their latest and most hyped album at the time) which to me, sounded horribly flat and over produced. Whilst its songs were decent, they seemed to be struggling to be heard underneath the over zealous compression and stifled by the complete lack of dynamic range. As such, 'Relationship' is the 'Drive In' record I play the least, and I dream of a day when somebody remasters the album and gives the songs room to breathe.
Digression aside, 'Vaya' is definitely worthy addition to this list and an EP that I never tire of hearing. Lesson learnt? By all means, don't always believe the hype, but don't be afraid to sometimes give it a chance.
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