Several decades ago, a promising Canadian metal band called Anvil played at a concert that was to define the course of metal, and released three moderate-selling albums. After that, they took the interesting path of continuing trying to do the same thing, releasing worse and worse albums every year. Anvil! The Story of Anvil is a documentary on the humiliations of the careers they are trying to make for themselves today, and how the glory days, the world, and their own personalities affect the way they make their music. The film sees an introduction to the band, a tour they do of Europe, the difficult release of their thirteenth album, and the various disasters and strained relations that come with these things. They make for some extremely entertaining and emotional set pieces, but if you’ve seen This is Spinal Tap this should probably be sounding irritatingly familiar.

Anvil! is pitched as a real-life Spinal Tap, and there’s not much that’s wrong with that. If you can imagine Spinal Tap filtered through David Brent you’ve got it about right, but it’s a lot more humane, and while its style is inherently less innovative, it is very refined. I say ‘style’: it is stylised, which is to say that it has a very liberal view of the word ‘documentary’. The narrative can be as realistically humorous as it likes, but some parts are still very unlikely and have exactly the kind of scope and pace that could easily have been manipulated by a diligent but unimaginative director. The emotions and tensions build in a suspiciously linear way, and whenever an important phonecall is received the cameraman is conveniently standing by to film the ensuing revelation with satisfyingly conventional cinematography. The fact that one of the band members marries their incompetent manager is hilariously ironic but toes the line of immersive believability. I’m not sure what to make of it really. On the one hand the other set pieces are made to be real and they’re all real people even if they sometimes do unrealistically apt things. But on the other hand it’s completely insane in context and nearly too funny to be true.

For the most part Anvil! gets it dead right, though: the characters are playing themselves, which is the most interesting thing to see a person play. There’s a moment of absolute genius when one of the band members stammers out every pressure and strong feeling he’s ever had about the band. Watching his eyes widen and tears roll down his face as he realises he wasn’t aware of all the things he is currently saying and abandons all thoughts of whether he should be saying them makes for a wonderful insight from an intriguing source. It’s especially brilliant when you’re laughing your head off partially at the absurdity of the situation but mostly because you either are or know someone very much like the man you are watching.

People like Rob and Lips are established personalities within our culture. They get less sympathetic portrayals in the guise of Jeremy in Peep Show, for example, and their best other representatives are in things like Pop Idol or The X Factor, but we all know one. Anvil! gives some much needed romance and pride to such dreamers. Not that it’s not one sided: you can see the strain they are on people, there’s the passing refence to drugs, and there is an underlying theme of poverty with some emphasis on Lips’ family. But that’s what makes them so cool, says Anvil! They won’t just defy The Man, they won’t just defy Society’s Expectations, but they will also defy logic in their love for music. It’s the only thing they know how to do, and so they can’t just stop. It’s not one sided in terms of their persecution though either – Rob came from a family that supported him, but Lips’ didn’t, though his brother said of him that he would choose poverty over mediocrity. That slightly suggests that they’re pursuing fame though, which they aren’t. The film gives an atmosphere of the pursuit of fame, but it’s more than that. Fame has become such an abstract and exaulted concept in our culture that you can desire the roar of the crowd and the respect of your conteporaries without directly wanting it.

With a few interviews with pretty surprising figures, the film shows that Anvil do have respect. It also devotes some time to Lips’ failed and desperate career in telemarketing, which it uses to say that he has fundamental beliefs that he can’t go against. Then it gives some time to Rob’s secret passion for watercolour painting, the fruits of which are quite beautiful and fairly poignant. Through this and a few other things, the film can teach you one or two things about metal as an art form. Once you accept that its proponents are more than just delusional layabouts, where do you go from there? It only very briefly shows us the songwriting process, or indeed much of the music at all, but it’s quite telling. Lips gives us some lyrics he wrote. They’re as glib and obscene as metal lyrics always are, but it’s brilliant to see him recite them with a pleased grin on his face. It makes you realise that what ever it is about, metal isn’t about anger. The apparent anger is just a stylistic thing, a mark of deference to the genre, not some half-baked expression of frustration. It’s a different kind of expression: it’s an unconscious expression, and it’s less powerful than many, but it’s expression, and it’s perfectly understandable to dedicate your life to it.

Dedication in all its forms is what much of the film is concerned with. Lips and Rob are in parts seen to be quite powerfully obsessed with their music – Rob turned down an opportunity to be the drummer for Black Sabbath. But the longevity of the band is the real testament to their strength and friendship. They have been together for nearly 40 years, and as Saul ‘Slash’ Hudson puts it, ‘How many bands are there that have been together 30 years? You’ve got the Rolling Stones, you’ve got The Who, and you’ve got Anvil’. It’s also proof that they don’t care about how many fans they have. There are a few diehard Anvil fans, who go to watch them play in the bars where Anvil do regular shows. These fans truly love the music, and it’s as though to spread that would be to dilute it. Good thing then, the film suggests, that the concerts on their tour are ill attended. But in every show, even the ones where the band members almost outnumber the audience members, there is a lone headbanger. His excitable hair makes an utter fool of him for the benefit of the audience, but he always reminds you that you can be immersed and empowered by the music being played, a thought which is amusingly difficult to sustain after some parts of the tour.

For all that it explores some quite deep and personal issues to do with the rock world, it’s surprising that the film never mentions the issue that brings together the feelings of love towards music and disappointment towards the music industry that the film projects. That issue is downloading, as seen next to the question of whether we are as grateful to artists as we should be. There’s a part in the film where Rob and Lips are trying to pitching their thirteenth album to a series of record companies. Seeing them get turned down again and again is predictable, but in a good way. Predictable like a cleverly staged opera based on a Greek myth, because it’s incisive and realistic, and the producers are aware of how predictable it is. After it’s done, Lips talks for a bit about how crazy the industry is, how futile things are. It’s sweet because in a way you know he doesn’t really mean it, and is forgetting about what his career is really all about. But then that’s it. Other stuff happens that could have commented on the state of the industry, but the actual focus is on Lips and Rob. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. It’s just a little annoying, because defenders of piracy are looking for exactly what is seen here: people more interested in hobbyism and live performance than large followings and lucrative marketing. Whatever though. The producers weren’t interested in downloading.

Anvil! The Story of Anvil could be recommended to a lot of people. Even if you don’t like cringey comedy, it’s worth bearing in mind that the most darkly funny parts happen when the characters are on their own. Only once or twice are you really meant to laugh at the pathetic audiences the band gets; mostly it’s just tastefully sad. The density of jokes is a little inconsistent, but you can forgive some of that because they’re all very good and the characters are well rounded enough to maintain your attention. It gets a little up itself at one point with Rob and Lips visiting Stonehenge as a passing reference to spirituality and presumably the human endeavour. It’s also what serves as the only hint of a setting, which is a pity really because it’s alluded to that it could have been the Canadian root which was holding Anvil back all that time. So don’t expect a revolution from this film, but if it’s on in the neighbourhood then check it out.