i love metal and i love the mountain goats. i think musically they have nothing to do with each other. and then, unrelatedly, i love that john darnielle seems to love metal in a way that's similar to the way that i love metal.

I have to say there was a period of time, years ago, when I felt stuck trying to make decisions, afraid a bad decision would ruin things. A listen to Freewill by Rush usually got me unstuck and on my way.

Is this a new incarnation of Spinal Tap? Pretty pretentious guy and the music was silly. And bad.

I was glad to hear Studio 360 feature John Darnielle, but surprised that we didn't hear The Mountaingoats' best instance of death metal distilled into folk music--namely, their song, "The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton." It's the only solo-acoustic guitar song I can think of that gets listeners to sing along to the lyrics, "Hail Satan." And the song does so in a completely earnest and non-ironic way that might give non-metalheads at least an appreciation of the genre's cultural importance.

I hope this song wasn't passed over because of the lo-fi production quality of Darnielle's earlier recordings. That analog sound is as important to his sound as is electric fuzz to Black Sabbath.