What's going on with High on Fire?

the only song i've encounteredthat i haven't been totally sure about is "warhorn" but 1) i can dig that it's different 2) i think it's mostly successful and 3) it's grown on me

other favs are "the pallid mask" and "drowning dog" (such a gut-wrencher) from em and "fertile green" and "madness of an architect" from de vermiis

"king of days" too

i've listened to these so much that there isn't a track that hasn't been a favorite tbh

still caning these guys lol.

i even got into luminiferous though it's obviously not quite as great as some of the others.

Some friends of mine are making a stink about Matt Pike coming off a conspiracy-minded crank here:

https://thequietus.com/articles/31016-matt-pike-interview

Which he is! But I was expecting much, much worse, unless I missed something major, which is possible, because he is so cranky I kind of skimmed.

Not really surprised either, hasn't he been going on about David Icke and lizard people for decades now?

I definitely remember Pike mentioning Icke in an interview I read years ago. The only musician I've ever had bring the reptoids up to me in an interview was Wino, who's now an anti-vax crank, so.

From what I've read in interviews with Pike and from my one, extremely drunken on his part, conversation with the guy, he seems more to just be into the lizard people conspiracy thing from a "this is batshit sci-fi fodder for kick-ass metal songs", I haven't gotten the sense that it's too engrained but I could be wrong.

I picked up an Icke book from a charity shop last year thinking I'd find out what his thing was. It's still sitting in a pile unread beside he toilet.
THought it be some interest. I dunno.

Like seeing how glaring the holes were or something

Oh there was definitely a time in my life I would have checked one of his books out from sheer curiosity, had I been aware enough to care.

Doing some googling, yeah, it's def. a weird purgatory of repurposing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a lizard people parable drawn from life, but the lizards are not, Icke insists, not Jews, just all powerful Zionists who *happen* to be actual, real space lizards.

I dunno, I didn't waste any more time on him. Pike, it's hard to tell what's up with Pike, though if you told me he believed or believed in literally anything it wouldn't come as a shock. Iirc the dude is even anti-earplug.

No interest in defending the guy, especially if there's more questionable beliefs of his I haven't stumbled across before, but he always struck me more as the old fashioned aliens and Illuminati corner bar type conspiracy theorist than the more dangerous, anti-vax, Q adjacent always online modern type conspiracy theorist.

Very contrarian "I would never belong to any club that would have me as a member" vibe.

he seems more to just be into the lizard people conspiracy thing from a "this is batshit sci-fi fodder for kick-ass metal songs", I haven't gotten the sense that it's too engrained but I could be wrong.

The line between aliens and Illuminati and Q has gotten thinner over time - the kooks were never quite as harmlessly goofy as we wanted to believe.

I think they were slightly more harmless before they were able to congregate online and stoke each others batshit.

a friend posted about this interview on FB with the "anarchist libertarian" bit, and I was like, "uh, I wonder if he's still in Oakland?" and then I skimmed the interview and lol of course he moved to Portland

Matt Pike seems like the sort of dude who lives wherever he wakes up. Did you see that thing about his amputated toe?

No surprise, the new song is pretty rad, but cliche or not it concerns me a little that Pike would name the album and song "Cometh the Storm." Given his predilections, he's the last guy I'd want talking about a coming storm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVr9AU9gMfo