Hey Matt. You know, I ran into Akitsa at the Iceage show and he mentioned he's putting out the Peste Noire on vinyl via Tour de Garde. Such an excellent album, agreed. Ditto Morne. I've been listening to that one quite a bit.
As far as non-metal, I also give my regards to Colin Stetson's 'New History Warfare...', The Men's 'Leave Home', and Chelsea Wolfe's 'áŒÏÎżÎșÎŹÎ»Ï ÏÎčÏ.'
p.s. Things like this don't bum me out. I like having discussions (and arguments). When I first got into punk/hardcore as a teenager, that's what it was largely about. Or what attracted me to it. We agree there. But, you know, I've never wagged my tail for a dollar.
I've written a dozen pieces on Iceage (here and elsewhere), starting from before the "hype" began, most receiving very little comments from the readers, so this was that spot. Yeah, it's short. And doesn't say much beyond offering release background. The other posts are more in-depth: Dig through the archives or do a Google search. (BTW, the "saviors of punk" thing was a tongue-in-cheek self-reflexive joke. I mean, c'mon, dude.)
Ha, that was for the last album. He had that classic stoner doom thing mixed here and there with a harsher blackened howl. Still the darkest material they've done. You don't get that on the new album, but he tapped into it on 'The Great Cessation'.
I own both! I listened to Pulp quite a bit when I worked at a bookstore in the mid/late '90s. The guy I overlapped with schedule-wise had really different taste in music then me, but we could agree on Pulp (and the store had limits to what we could play). So, yeah, I know just about every song on that set list by heart. Unexpected, perhaps, but true. I lost interest w/ the more recent albums...
To better answer your question, though, it's a one-person column, so I post about the things I'm listening to at any particular time. Did you listen to the In Solitude track? I definitely have a tendency toward black, doom, etc., but I've covered some death metal recently and some straight-up old school-style metal, etc. Anyhow, I'd also recommend going back and checking out recent posts on Book Of Black Earth, that new Morbid Angel, Vastum, SubRosa, etc. Pretty varied.
To my mind it's healthy (and interesting) to have a column covering a different genre than indie-rock (or whatever you want to call it) on a primarily indie-rock (ditto) site. There are plenty of metal blogs. Indie-rock blogs. There are fewer indie-rock/metal/etc mash-ups. (Outside Fred's amazing work at BrooklynVegan and the stuff Mark and Grayson hit on in their The Out Door [which, less metal, is more in the spirit of my old "outer realms" column, The Outsiders.) Plus, now and then a metal band captures the attention/interest of folks outside that scene. It's like open stacks at the library, or whatever: You have this amazing option to stumble upon something you weren't looking for. Personally, I think music culture's too prescribed and safe these days-- you type a word into Google and find what you wanted to find/blogs are super specialized and same-same. It's nice throwing some curve balls into that mix. On a simpler level, plenty of people listen to both Bon Iver and Autopsy.
Yeah, Yow's a hero -- incredible, honest, visceral, fearless live presence. I saw him get knocked out, get revived, and then continue playing (at CBGB's). Was my point of mentioning the Germs, too. And, really, could keep adding to the list of folks who "walk the walk"/have balls outside their Twitter feeds. Odd Future's subject matter doesn't bother me, but that they don't believe it, that it's clearly just a Jackass-inspired game, is pretty boring. They had the chance to do something interesting with that glass ... and ran away.
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