Post-hardcore godfathers At the Drive-In caused a seismic eruption on the musical landscape way back in 2000, with the now-seminal melodic punk handbook, ‘Relationship of Command’ – before breaking up, and becoming the subject of endless thinkpieces among music geekdom ever since. The album was the kind of ‘overnight success’ that takes years of practice, miles of asphalt, and buckets of self-belief: the band were completely unfashionable until they were suddenly the sound of the moment, and the members’ diverting ambitions soon pulled the whole project apart. Their 2012 reunion, too, lit the blogosphere on fire, in good ways and bad, but their fourth album – last year’s ‘in•ter a•li•a’ – is a stake in the ground: the band’s recipe for coagulated guitar anthems still lighting a fire in the belly, full of hurricane riffs, noisy squalls, and mad space opera lyrics. If you were late to the party, you wouldn’t guess that Sparta’s muscular excursions and the wilderness-prog freakery of the Mars Volta make such a potent combination, but somewhere in their hearts, these guys belong together.

Mon 12 Mar, 7.30pm at O2 Institute, 78 Digbeth, Birmingham B5 6DY. £38 seetickets.com