Torche isn’t a metal band. There, I said it. That’s a thought I’ve entertained in the back of my head for a while now — but I couldn’t bring myself to broach the topic for fear of ridicule. “Torche…not a metal band? How dare you, dirty brigand. Have you ever listened to music?” Or at least that’s the reaction I imagine.

But seriously, after the Guided By Voices songs they covered, the general trajectory of Songs for Singles, and now with Kicking — the first track from Harmonicraft — it’s become apparent that Torche is no longer a “metal band.”

Sure, the riffs are present and there’s just enough peripheral sludge these days to fool you. That’s a given. Plus Meanderthal was flush with metal signposts. Then, when you take into account the band’s collective musical heritage (Floor, Shitstorm) and former label home (Hydra Head), I can see why you’d use the M word.

Really though, if you strip away the exoteric correlations and listen to Kicking, U.F.O or even Fat Waves — you can’t say, “This is obviously a metal band.” I’m not saying you’ll find no trace of metal in Torche these days. Far from it. Far, far from it. But calling them “metal” is no different than calling Fucked Up “hardcore” or Ted Leo “pop punk.”

Those assessments would be technically correct if you’re using a particular rubric. However, I think we all know that contrary to Central Bureaucrat No. 1′s opinion, being technically correct isn’t always the best kind of correct. At the very most, you could say that Torche is an aggressive, metal-informed rock band with pop tendencies. That’s definitely not the same as “metal band.”

Now that I’ve wasted your time with my inane conjectures, listen to Kicking. It’s a badass jam.

Chris Evans, keyboardist for The Sleeping, recently posted his take on Converge’s Jane Doe. “This was all played in a few live takes,” Evans said. “No midi programming at all just me and my fat little fingers.”

Did Get Up Kids singer Matt Pryor know that Something to Write Home About would go on to be such an important album?

Anybody who says that they were making an “important” album is either an idiot or an asshole. You’re just trying to make a good record. How it’s interpreted throughout history is not up to you at all. It’s completely up to everyone else. I don’t know that what we did is important. I’ve been told by lots of people that they like it and some of those people are in successful bands but most of them aren’t.

Bleached is made up of the Clavin sisters — Jennifer and Jessica — who previously played in Mika Miko. This time around, however, things are less raucous. Jennifer told the Washington Post:

I mean it doesn’t feel as punk. Bands that are punk, they don’t really have plans. [With Mika Miko] it was just, let’s start a band and play music. And now we’re actually trying to write good songs and caring a little bit more. Before we didn’t really care.

Not long after I found out that At the Drive-In was reuniting for Coachella, I found out that we’re getting a Refused reunion at Coachella, too. My head is ‘sploding.

Here are some words from the band about why we’re getting a Refused reunion. Man, I just typed “Refused reunion.” Anyway, here are those words:

We never did The shape of punk to come justice back when it came out, too tangled up in petty internal bickering to really focus on the job. And suddenly there’s this possibility to do it like it was intended. We wanna do it over, do it right. For the people who’ve kept the music alive through the years, but also for our own sakes.

We feel that you deserve it and we hope the feeling is mutual.

See you in the pit.

That’s right, At the Drive-In is reuniting! We don’t have a lot to go on right now, but it looks like the band will at least be playing Coachella.

Words can’t begin to describe what I’m feeling right now.

We learned one important thing tonight about The Late Show With David Letterman — there are no do-overs. Greg Demos is a trooper.

Richard Swift is slowly boring his way into Damien Jurado’s head, or at least that’s the impression you get from Jurado’s latest single, Nothing Is the News. It’s the first track from his upcoming album, Maraqopa, which hits shelves Feb. 21.

The song is a fuzzy journey through a jazzy world inhabited by Picasso caricatures wearing elf shoes. I don’t know about the rest of the album, but Nothing Is the News continues further down the collaborative path blazed by Saint Barlett, and it illustrates the deepening Vulcan mind meld between Jurado and Swift.

Never has folky electropop seemed so badass.

In the immortal words of Shang Tsung, it has begun. The first single from the upcoming Guided By Voices record Let’s Go Eat the Factory will be released Nov. 22. The Unsinkable Fats Domino will be backed with We Won’t Apologize for a seven-inch that can be pre-ordered from Matador as we speak. Bob Pollard was also kind enough to make …Fats Domino available online.

While I’ve only heard this track, I’m feeling good about the album, which is out Jan. 1. Given his late-career resurgence, Pollard couldn’t have picked a better time to record a GBV record with the band’s “classic lineup.”