...in this week's music section:

There's Headbangers Brawl, in which resident metal-heads Jeff Kirby and Shane Mehling go head to head regarding the Sword, Metallica, and the meaning of True Metal:

"Evidently we're Lars Ulrich's favorite band," says Sword frontman J. D. Cronise.

And rightly so. I've said it before: I want the Sword to rule the metal world. And even though it's harder to admit now that it actually costs $80 to see them play in a basketball stadium, I still want this. Which is why opening for Metallica is the perfect gig for the Sword: No matter how much Metallica declined over the years, their crowds never dwindled (apparently they don't need us critics to fill stadiums), and Metallica fans should be Sword fans.

After only two records, the Sword have gained a massive mainstream fan base by shamelessly cribbing High on Fire, Sleep, Kyuss, Orange Goblin, Pentagram, Electric Wizard, Saint Vitus, Acid King—I could go on. For a while. Nothing in their half-assed pastiche resembles an original thought or riff. There has been a near-constant output of stoner/doom metal for the last 40 years, but aside from genre godfathers Black Sabbath, the Sword are singular in their popularity. Why?

Heavy.

Then there's Triumh of the Shrill, in which Sam McPheeters tears into Guns'n'Roses' 17-years-in-the-making mastershit, Chinese Democracy (and with no Kirby analog to argue the "pro" side):

Let's take just a moment to mourn the death of "Chinese Democracy" as a phrase. For those of us not sold on the brilliance of Guns N' Roses, those two words have long served asshorthand for a kind of averted disaster, like "Y2K" or "2006 transatlantic aircraft plot." For the last decade, Chinese Democracy (the album) existed only as a concept; a joke about its own unlikelihood; a statement about writer's block, perfectionism, obsession, and reclusion. The reclusion part was nice. It was nice not hearing from vocalist and franchise-owner Axl Rose for a while.

It gets better.

There's me on the Hold Steady and Vivian Girls's Drinking Problems, Dave Segal on the Herbaliser's Head-Nodding Hedonism, plus all the usual columns, Up & Coming listings, and Album Reviews. It's all right here.

Happy Thanksgiving!