Eh. Same shit that's always brought up. Reynold's sees metal's growing mass appeal linked to how stagnant pop is right now and gets feedback from folks who, if you look close, know as little as he does about the current "scene."
What made this moment of "hipster metal" distinctly different from the current one is that rather than alt-rock types glomming onto an arty offshoot of the mainstream of metal, the bands embraced--Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeath--were among the most popular (with true metalheads) of their day..
His assertion that metal, influenced by punk, began to counter decadence, folly, corruption, ornament is off base if one takes a real look at their Sabbath or Priest records, but theres no denying that punk and its influence on grindcore helped blur lines (between punk-metal as well as noise-metal) and began to shift away from the realm of the mystique. The liberal handwringing over fascist-tendencies and misogyny also gets tiring fast.
I also thought the one readers comment on Oaken Throne zine was funny since its not hard to find at all in any "underground" or metal distros. It's even sold by TheEnd for christsakes but "Wallace Winfrey" buys it from Aquarius. Weird.
And it's a good thing Julian Cope is so fucking nuts in general that not very many people take his article on "metal" seriously, even if a couple bands mentioned in his Guardian piece are very interesting (Wolfmangler).
I'm the guy who added that link on metal-archives. I agree, putting it under "fan site" doesn't make much sense, but the other three options (official, merchandise, and tabs) were even less appropriate. That's why I went with "fan site."