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Iraqi heavy metal: give it a chance

I don’t know quite what gets people interested in metal (nobody does), but I can understand that growing up amid turbulent political strife and the thunder of warfare might give a little added incentive to headbang. This is precisely the case with Acrassicauda, a heavy metal act which originated in Iraq in 2001, but is now based in Istanbul, due to the war.

This video was posted yesterday by Al Jazeera English, which should further improve the band’s already rather high profile. If the hit counter on the band’s homepage is to be believed, they’ve already had over 70 million hits in just two years. Pretty impressive.Indeed, the band commands a remarkable internet presence, with Wikipedia entries in English, Polish, and German (no surprise there), an entry in the Encyclopaedia Metallum, a Last.fm artist page, and a peppering of of articles by major news outlets, such as NPR and BBC. There are even several articles in the WSJ about the band, which I can’t provide here given their stupid subscription model, but one of them was fortunately covered by Blabbermouth and quoted at length.

“When ACRASSICAUDA ripped into a furious version of METALLICA’s ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ at a recent concert, dozens of fans rushed the stage, jerked their heads to the music and slam-danced.

“Midway through the set, a portly club official took the stage and ordered the crowd to sit down. The band ignored him and kept playing, and around 50 of the roughly 200 fans remained standing. The official ended the concert and angrily escorted the band off the stage. Faisal Talal, the band’s singer and rhythm guitarist, shouted a string of profanities, drawing cheers from the crowd.

“It was a classic moment of rock ‘n’ roll rebellion, but such gestures come at a high price in Iraq. The venues that ACRASSICAUDA — which may be Iraq’s only heavy-metal band — played before the war are now government compounds or off-limits because of street crime. The staid Iraqi Hunting Club, which hosted the aborted concert, says the band won’t be allowed back. The group hasn’t found a new venue.

“‘It’s never been harder for us to play our music, but there’s also never been so much of a need for it,’ says Mr. Talal, 21 years old. ‘There’s a lot to be angry about these days, and we want to give people a way to get that out.’”

Now, what’s very unfortunate is that the documentary mentioned in the Al Jazeera English video above is absolutely unattainable. Pretty sure it does in fact exist, seeing as its site claims it earned “official selection” at the Toronto International Film Festival this year. I guess this fame resulted in a lower visibility for the movie, seeing as this Blabbermouth article links to the video on an online distribution channel, VBS.tv, and the link now just shows the VBS.tv’s main page. This curious removal of content was brought up in the VBS.tv forums, only to have the thread locked. To top it off, the YouTube video link in the article also says the clip has been removed.

The trailer for the film, of course, is sprinkled all over the internet.

The movie’s page over at IMDB doesn’t offer much information, but does credit “VBS.TV” as the company behind the work. The single review written of the movie is by someone who claims to have actually attended the Toronto International Film Festival.I wish the band a solid discography and healthy tour cycle. I hope they don’t have to stay away from their families for too long.

Digg the Al Jazeera video or check out the band’s MySpace.