The devil is said to have the best tunes, but the real villains here are the inept US Security Council and the murdering militias tearing up the streets of Baghdad, not the members of Acrassicauda, dreaming of Metallica-level success.
Reaching Spinal Tap levels of absurdity, bringing heavy metal to the Middle Eastern masses is a tough task: between 2002 and 2006 Acrassicauda performed only five shows because Metal is synonymous with Satan worship (even under secular Saddam), wearing band T-shirts is a West-endorsing no-no, and headbanging looks too much like orthodox Jews rocking in prayer...
Following a 2004 story in VICE magazine, filmmakers Moretti and Alvi journeyed to Baghdad in 2005 to stage a modest concert with the band, returning a year later to discover the city ablaze, any semblance of freedom gone, and only two members of the four-piece still residing in the capital.
By the end of 2006 all four members reunited as exiles in Syria, playing modest clubs and living in deprivation, but still keeping the dream alive.
Watching the disintegration of Baghdad alongside the band members’ aspirations makes this an enlightening and impassioned account of the Middle Eastern crisis.
The failure to instil grassroots democracy has removed a much-needed vent for angry young men (Acrassicauda are good to rock out to), leaving only blossoming rage and isolation.
Alvi and Moretti’s ever-expanding escort of gun-packing bodyguards (the country’s one growth industry), the curfews, a 2.4m middle class brain drain exodus, and Firas' denunciation of the widespread sectarian killings prove that peace in the Middle East is a distant prospect.
Acrassicauda (Latin for the desert dwelling black scorpion) prove themselves a tight outfit despite rehearsal privations (their hangout was levelled in a rocket attack of unknown origin) and eloquent commentators on the conflict – “People say Baghdad is a warzone. Why is there a warzone in a civilian zone?” - and on the ousting of Saddam, “It’s like they took Ali Baba and left the forty thieves.”
Maybe one day the group (now residing in Turkey) will open for Metallica or Slipknot, but currently there is more chance of Bush taking an easyJet flight to Fallujah than four Iraqi metalheads obtaining Western visas.
For the moment, the music is truly over.
