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To the outsider, it may seem odd that a city as far removed off the pop culture radar as El Paso, Tex., could produce a rock band as explosive, vibrant and buzzed-about as At the Drive-In. But anyone who actually knows the city is more likely to wonder why such a phenomenon took so damn long to happen in the first place.

Built in the shadow of southernmost part of the Rocky Mountains in America, El Paso is not a small town (population 700,000), but it's separated from the central Texas hub of Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Houston by some five hundred miles of barren desert. All that separates it from Mexico, however, is a muddy stretch of the Rio Grande. From the elevated vantage point of the West Side -- one of the city's most affluent districts -- you can get a clear view of the third world wasteland of the Juarez colonias, a sobering expanse of dirt roads and ramshackle dwellings of cardboard, tin and mud. And though rich in comparison to its southern neighbor, El Paso itself is one of the poorest cities in America. Growing up there, you get a sense of what Luke Skywalker felt growing up on Tatooine, as far away from the center of the galaxy as you can possibly get. With kids there having little besides malls, a run-down amusement park and underage drinking across in the Juarez nightclubs for entertainment, El Paso is one big powder keg of pent-up teenage rebellion and restless escapist fantasies; an explosion in the order of At the Drive-In was only a matter of time. As guitarist/keyboardist Jim Ward readily concedes, "Being from El Paso has made us everything we are."

"We were segregated because a lot of bands wouldn't go through El Paso," explains drummer Tony Haijar. "You'd play Phoenix, and then skip El Paso and go to Austin. But I think the segregation helped all the bands we were in growing up, and it's helped this band, because it helped you create your own thing. We just had our records -- we didn't have the new bands touring through and getting pieces of their sound."

Ward is the group's only native El Pasoan and the only member who still lives in the city; Haijar, who was born in Lebanon, Puerto Rican-born guitarist Omar Rodriguez and California-natives Paul Hinojos (bass) and Cedric Bixler (vocals) all now reside in Los Angeles. But it was in the Sun City that they came together, united by a shared passion for uncommonly honest and adrenaline-charged rock & roll, and the city and its social conditions (poverty, racial tension, isolationism) remain indelible influences on their music. What separates them from a band like Rage Against the Machine (who they are oft compared to sonically), however, is the way they channel those factors into an oblique emotional stream of consciousness, not a political battle cry.

"Lyrically, there are issues that seem political, because we are from a bordertown, and it affects us all," says Bixler, who like Rodriguez sports an afro of Good Times proportions. "But we've never really stood behind any slogans or anything like that . . . You can never say that At the Drive-In is this left wing, pinko socialist band. We'd be total hypocrites by saying that because of what we do in every day life. We sell T-shirts. You pay to see us.There's really no political agenda that we can stand on."

ATDI came together six years ago and hit the ground running, releasing their debut single (inevitably named "Hell Paso") just three months after their formation. With three songs to their credit, they hit the road. And though Ward says that the band's sound -- a Molotov cocktail of propulsive rhythms, shards of angular, effects-laden guitar, shouted choruses and serpentine vocal melodies -- has evolved "a million light years" in the time between "Hell Paso" and Relationship of Command, their freshly minted third full-length album and Grand Royal debut, Bixler notes that the frantic energy that propels the band live was in place from the very beginning.

"Being a little alienated in El Paso, you only had one way to release your energy, and that was to go to a show and slam dance and be a fool," he says. "Either that, or listen to your music and let it out in your room. So now this is just like being in your room, only in front of people."

What they do in front of people borders on masochism. Displaying an earnest intensity befitting pre-irony U2, ATDI are an exhilarating and exhausting experience -- the sight and sound of five young men ever pushing against and beyond the limits of physical and emotional endurance with crusader zeal -- and violence to match. "Jim broke his [guitar] headstock on Paul's back, and he nailed him in the head once," laughs Rodriguez, who himself once cut Bixler's lip open with his own swinging guitar. In the midst of the mayhem, Bixler throws himself about like an unholy cross between Iggy Pop and Chris Katan's animalistic Saturday Night Live character Mr. Peepers.

When they carry on like this while performing their single "One Armed Scissor" on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, it looks a tad ridiculous. On a club stage, however, it's electrifying, particularly when you see the huge smiles they wear after nearly every song. What they do to themselves each night has nothing to do with rage or Marilyn Manson-style shock tactics; they're just caught up