Sparta might be billed as Pearl Jam's opening act this Saturday, but the show will be the band's closing gig after a national tour that has taken it across the country five times.

The group is a reincarnation of aggressive rockers At The Drive-In, which went on a "permanent hiatus" after finding mild success with its 2000 release, Relationship of Command. Sparta features Drive-In members Jim Ward (vocals/guitar), Paul Hinojos (guitar) and Tony Hajjar (drums) with newcomer Matt Miller (bass).

But personnel changes aside, the group's sound and aura are noticeably different from that of its predecessor. Although its Web site describes it simply as a "Texas-based punk band," Sparta brings several influences into its music beyond the stereotypical and expected.

"I always just say we're a rock band, and we like to experiment with a lot of electronic stuff," Hinojos said.

"We want to constantly evolve our sound."

"I would describe it as a blend of eerie guitars and driving drums meshed with hauntingly catchy vocals, pushing toward the darker side of things," said Justin Stewart (sophomore-animal bioscience), lead singer of local punk group Category Five.

When At The Drive-In split up in 2001, its members went their separate ways for some time.

But it wasn't long before Hinojos and Ward began playing together again. Hinojos compared it to the way a band might form in high school, with a group of friends hanging around and deciding to jam, ultimately leading to the formation of an official band.

The biggest differences between the two distinct groups has been the change in group setup (four members of Sparta versus five in ATDI) and Hinojos's decision to switch to guitar r ather than bass, which he said was unplanned at first and intended to be a challenge for himself.

One of the strengths of this new group has been that the members all work together in every aspect of its production, from songwriting to titling the albums, Hinojos said.

The group even worked cooperatively to pick out its name, which coincidentally translates as "to come out of a really messed up situation with greater knowledge" in Japanese.

"Everyone can put in his own input," Hinojos said.

"It's a total free-for-all. It's the best way to exchange ideas, with no holding back. We just come together and just pound it out until it sounds good."

This collaborative songwriting process helped Sparta write and record an EP in early 2002 and its first full-length album, Wiretap Scars, in the same year.

Along with the popularity of the album, the group may have secured its spot opening for Pearl Jam partially through a connection made while touring with Weezer in the past.

Although other members of Pearl Jam had heard Sparta, one of the Weezer crewmembers also worked for Pearl Jam and gave Sparta's CD to the group as well.

In any case, the band itself chose Sparta to tour with it.

Hinojos said that there are some similarities between his band and Pearl Jam, but only in the way that the two groups run themselves.

"I really think they're a band that has done things their own way. It's great to see, and it's really inspirational," he said.

"We don't sound like them," he added.

"The people that are there [during the Sparta set] are open to hearing a band that they've never heard. I'm stoked that people have an open ear."

And even though Hinojos can always see the Sparta fans in little clusters here and there, he understands that all of the fans can't come to these shows; this larger-venue tour is a more pricey ticket and the group has been across the country several times already.

After Saturday's show, the group will be going to Europe for several weeks with Queens of the Stone Age.

When Sparta returns to the States, it plans to record its next album, and although Hinojos didn't want to make predictions about the new disc, he does hope to continue pushing his group's sound.

"They are very, very different, and they almost require an acquired taste to get into," Stewart said. "But I think some of it is really genius."