In 2001, the founding members of Mission Of Burma – Roger Miller, Clint Conley and Peter Prescott, with Bob Weston replacing Swope – began performing together again for the first time since 1983. Subsequent shows in Boston, New York, London, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Atlanta, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and Washington DC unveiled a frighteningly contemporary band whose sonic palette has only grown during the layoff. Still suffering from tinnitus, Roger Miller keeps the volume on high but wears firing-range headphones and takes other precautions onstage so as not to compromise the intensity for fans.

To our ringing ears, ONoffON is not a mere rehash of past glories; this is a sprawling, multi-layered epic that drops bombs all over the musical map, with three very distinct songwriters each at a startling peak. While some will doubtlessly be comfortable giving Mission Of Burma the odd paragraph (chapter, even) in the history of independent rock, this is the album that puts them firmly in a more rarified territory. The Stooges, MC5, Velvet Underground, Television, The Fall, Joy Division, PiL, etc. – this is the pantheon that Mission Of Burma are part of. The key difference being that these guys are very much alive and well, and they've yet to peak creatively. Enjoying this album doesn't require that you buy into the notion that the most influential band you've never heard are also the best band of 2004 – but it shouldn't hinder the experience, either.--Gerard Cosloy, 2004

"Combining rock 'n' roll's traditional fetish for pure, unmediated feeling, with a more modern sort of artistic calculation, Burma's music could evoke everything from the Beatles' ecstatic run of Hamburg rock clubs in the early '60s to the lightning-speed hardcore punk – so fast it often seemed more like avant-garde art music than rock 'n' roll – that was developing in the U.S. during Burma's tenure. In this sense, Burma can be said to have blithely encapsulated punk's overarching mission: to draw a line connecting rock rebels past and present, and, in doing so, re-imagine and re-establish the music's anarchic condition…From Prescott's scattershot rhythms to Miller's tightly coiled chords, from Swope's blur of sound to Conley's thudding bass, the thrilling tension of Burma's music is the way it always sounds as though it's about to sabotage itself. Crucially, however, Mission of Burma was an American band; it was as uniquely redolent of its surroundings and intoxicated by rock's manic rush as the Ramones or the Stooges.” – Greg Milner, Salon