The Never-Ending Nostalgia Trip

At the Drive-In's 2000 album,
'Relationship of Command'

Coachella has a lot to answer for, and we should probably be grateful for that. Well, most of us at any rate. This year's line-up announcement brought us the news that two of the finest alternative bands that the 1990s produced were dusting off their back-catalogues after the best part of a decade away and were reforming for the festival and beyond. At The Drive-In and Refused, kindly take a bow.

I didn't get a ticket. I'm deeply upset at this, as the rest of the lineup is just stellar, unlikely to be matched by anyone else this year. But this comes as no surprise to me, I haven't actually been to a festival since Coachella in 2007, spurred on by the comeback of Rage Against the Machine. The festival has made a name for itself with similar stunt-booking throughout the years, coaxing bands out of self-imposed "hiatuses" to come and play for the adoring masses under the beautiful Californian sky (see Pixies and RATM).

On the one hand, this is brilliant for fans like me. People who were late to the party, too young, or simply unaware of the brilliance of bands such as ATD-I to venture to a gig in their heyday. The opportunity to hear songs such as Pattern Against User, Pickpocket and the like live for myself is an utterly tantalising prospect. To the cynics and the jaded fans who were there before, it's potentially nothing more than a nostalgic cash-in, sullying the "legacy" that they had left behind. A legacy that is in the very DNA of every post-hardcore band that seemed to follow.

So the question is, why now? 2000's Relationship of Command was the band's breakthrough album, but ultimately led to the "indefinite" hiatus that has now come to an end. From their ashes came Sparta and the more-renowned The Mars Volta, perhaps best conveying where the band's priorities lay. I'm a novice when it comes to Sparta, but I did enjoy the first two Volta albums. Alas, every subsequent track I've heard since is the literal embodiment of guitar masturbation, with little to enjoy or even love unless you're on copious amounts of hallucinogenics. Which is probably the point.

In that case, I'm relieved that ATD-I are back. The news brought an endless stream of quoted lyrics and puns on my respective social media feeds, vocalising the sheer delight many of my peers felt. The most interesting response I heard was that it was a sign that modern-day bands have "failed", that we need bands like Refused and ATD-I to stoke the embers and restore some passion, vigour and violenc e to a music scene that holds Ed Sheeran aloft as some sort of hero. I'm inclined to agree, we might need them now more than ever.

If it is a cynical cash-grab, we'll know soon enough. But I just hope that the fire has returned, that they still have something to say and that any new material captures that sheer anger, energy and passion that made us fall in love with them in the first place. And make the lyrics as nonsensical as you need them to be, we'll be screaming along to every word.