“After a non-stop six-year cycle of record-tour-record-tour, we are going on an indefinite hiatus,” guitarist Omar Rodriguez explained.

“We need the time to rest up and re-evaluate, just to be human beings again and to decide when we feel like playing music again.”

A spokesman for the band reiterated that At The Drive-In is merely taking a break, not breaking up.

“Oh, no. They’re just taking a break – nothing more than that. When they’ll come back is up in the air, but it’s certainly nothing permanent,” the rep told Pollstar.

It’s been a tumultuous time for the band, with a breakout album and almost non-stop touring – the effects of which had begun to show in prior cancellations due to illness or exhaustion.

The final five dates of a European tour had to be scrapped when three band members came down with the flu in February. Five southwestern U.S. shows were also canceled last fall with the band again citing burnout.

Three of those dates – Denver, Las Vegas and San Diego – were rescheduled only to bite the dust with the latest announcement.

Last year, At The Drive-In released its first full-length album in two years, Relationship of Command, headlined a world tour, and trekked the U.S. with Murder City Devils.

And they had been tapped to open for Rage Against The Machine and the Beastie Boys on the ill-fated Rhyme & Reason 2000 tour, which was canceled when the Beasties’ Mike D. broke his arm.

At The Drive-In spent most of its previous six years strictly D.I.Y., booking their own gigs and releasing their own seven-inchers and EPs.

The band’s goal was never stardom, particularly. “We just wanted to tour and make records, so we put out our own records and booked our own tours, drove our own van,” guitarist/keyboardist Jim Ward told Pollstar in January.

“Playing live is something that takes it such a notch up,” Ward said. “It’s so much more exciting when everything’s cranked up, when there’s kids and they’re smiling and having a good time and we can try and communicate with people.

“That’s why hype is destructive to a point because it tends to lose what the band’s trying to communicate.”