Light Beer is For Posers

It's Autumn finally, the time when a young man's fancy turns to metal. At least this young man. The nights are longer, the air is colder, the amount of denim people wear increases by 30-40%. What else can one do but turn to metal? As Halloween creeps ever closer, the need for speed metal increases exponentially so I watched Get Thrashed: The Story of Thrash Metal to kick things off right.

Meh.

Yeah? Just a "meh"? Not furious enough for you.

Not even close. It was way to much adulation and way too little raw power. Endless talking heads jabbering about how "Metallica were the kings, man" or "without Maiden, you wouldn't have modern metal" gets real old real fast. A big fat 6 for this one.

It was a lot of preaching to the choir but I like that they followed the history chronologically and highlighted the east coast vs. west coast metal wars. I had never heard about that before and found it fascinating. I also still can't believe Metallica, after a short stint in L.A., were based out of San Francisco - that blows my mind.

The historical aspect was great but the interviews were rarely illuminating, which some would say is a given since you're dealing with metal heads, but some of them were actually pretty eloquent or at least thoughtful about the music and the art of thrash.

The modern metal dudes were mostly meatheads though, especially that idiot from Slipknot who seemed to be on screen more than any of the relevant musicians.

I was also dismayed at the grudge the thrash metal dudes still hold against Kurt Cobain, Alice in Chains and the rest of the bands who kicked metal out of the limelight in the early 90s. Metal has always had a cyclical nature when it comes to pop cultural resonance and the 90s were simply the beginning of yet another downswing. It's sad to see such bitterness still poisoning their minds.

The story is interesting, the music is incredible and the snapshot of early 80s heshers was awesome but it all left me a bit sad by the end. It was like watching a bunch of ex-high school jocks reminisce about how the good old days were the best time of their lives, which may be true, but it's hard to watch their empty shells wandering around babbling about the past. Although it certainly wasn't the films intent, Get Thrashed ended up making these metal gods seem depressingly human.