There’s nothing like a good documentary. Anvil, I can happily say is one of the best music docu’s I’ve seen. Anvil is the name of a Canadian metal band that has been together for 30 years. Yeah, I never heard of them before this either.

It’s a remarkable human story of dreams and percerveriance. This guys saw their greatest success in the early 1980’s, shorty before Slayer and Metallica hit the scene and became world wide names in music. “Metal on Metal” was their hit and got them as far as touring Japan in a world tour that included Bon Jovi! But something happened. Nothing!

These guys were pretty much forgotten and left for dead. With a tiny fan base, Anvil put out 12 albums (with a fairly steady roster through the years too) independantly. Going from tiny label to tiny label, they never found traction and every single manager they had was garbage. But they never gave up. The original founding members, Lips and Robb swore that they’d make it as metal gods as kids and to this day are still going for it.

It’s a brutal but inspiring story. The documentary follows them while recording their 13th album. Everything from playing tiny shows to hooking back up with their original producer in England. They’re depressed to lose money on a 5 week Euro tour that has to be seen to be believed (I don’t think the manager they had knew what a manger does). They find hope when they hook up with their great old producer and then a huge fight breaks out 6 weeks into recording. They have meaningless jobs back home that barely pay the bills while they stretch everyday to get to that dream, but it always seems to move out of the way…

But there is a silver lining at the end. It doesn’t matter what kind of music you like, Anvil is a human story that everyone should see. And yes, the similarities to Spinal Tap are eerie, but this wacky ride is a real one.