I'M PULLING FOR ANVIL AND ALL BUT COME ON

The semi-existent Anvil renaissance hasn't really registered with me, though I did go see the movie. Call it a cynical viewpoint, but it's possible to feel that the obscurity of certain bands is completely justified. No one wants to say it but Anvil stinks. And VH1 has entered a land of make-believe with intensifying claims that Anvil were once worshiped and poised to conquer the hard rock world, especially in the recent ramp-up to the DVD release. (AC/DC plans to repay VH1 for partnering on their Black Ice album by taking Anvil on for a handful of shows.) Shit, from where I'm standing, the band opened a short tour made up of hair rock's most embarrassing European groan-rock bands. And this is total haterspeak but dildo-guitar antics and charmless nonthems placed Anvil firmly in league with unsexy tourmates Whitesnake and The Scorpions. But VH1 would have us believe that this Led Zeppelin II was derailed by mismanagement and poor luck. Those of us who've been to 30 - 1200 live shows, however, have seen innumerable openers (and headliners!) soon and rightly destined for the scrap pile. That is not derision just fact.

In Anvil's case, that string of shows in what looks like Japan served as an exception and just because that was enough to convince Lips and Robb of a pending entry into Metal Valhalla, with its attendant riches and excess, doesn't mean it would've been deserved. And somewhere in all this pathos, VH1 senses a unique underdog story and flogs it like the rented mule it clearly is. Slash and cokehead Lars Ulrich appear in the documentary, swearing by Anvil's repressible talents, and yet in no photo or appearance have I spotted an Anvil shirt on their persons. (Lemmy, the coolest guy ever, resists dubious overstatement as usual.) I haven't even heard them mentioned by anyone since junior high, when we'd dine and ditch Perkins then openly mock the sub-Spinal Tap album covers/titles of moldering Anvil tapes at Half Price Books. I mean Anvil was a perfect name for this band: unmoving, boring, useless to most. Don't hate me.

DON'T HATE ME BUT CRADLE OF FILTH REEKS

I must have lost a bet or something because I went to the theater to see Sweeney Todd, the film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's musical. It was pure garbage but while ignoring it, I had an hour free to ponder the paradox of rank movie musicals. Movies are awesome, music is awesome, so why are movie musicals about as appealing as a kick to the 'nads? 

Least of all poised to solve this age-old mystery is Cradle of Filth, whose pointless, marathon-length albums generate the same distaste and antipathy as films with murderous barbers warbling while artfully opening blood geysers from enemies' throats. My first COF record was Midian; the lead track "Cthulu Dawn" ripped my head off, but welcome to Snoresville from there on out. A friend says the same about COF's Sony debut, Damnation and A Day, but fuck if I care. 

We all agree that it's hard to completely turn away from bands with screaming and blood and shit, no matter how cheesy, so a seeming eternity of Sunday was spent charitably taking in Godspeed On The Devil's Thunder (out tomorrow). Yet another concept album about somebody evil or something, GOTDT is the nail in COF's coffin, with their flat, bubbly distortion, totally random collections of edgeless riffs, and the many voices of Dani Filth (above). It is so borrrrring! Dani needs to get out of music if telling scary stories is going to take precedent over musical cohesion and momentum. We already have one W.A.S.P.

Don't Hate Me: Atheist's Kelly Schaefer

You're pretty much a certifiable idiot if you don't love Atheist. And so I figure there was a high number of dudes bummed out by Atheist frontman Kelly Schaefer's decision to don big pants, goofy sunglasses, and a freaking wallet chain in Neurotica. As Atheist is one of this nation's proudest achievements, it's fitting that today Schaeffer's back with Pyroclastic, whose four song demo downloads here. I know everybody's trying their very best but Neurotica's flimsy hard rock kinda grossed me out and Pyroclastic is dated, down-tuned groove metal with a shall we say unintentionally hilarious environmentalist bent. Oh look there's a guy named Shizz in it.