Most rock documentaries from these shores arrive as career obituaries. Alien Weaponry: Kua Tupu Te Ara – about the young band that has incorporated te reo Māori into the very Pākehā genre of heavy metal – is different.
It’s about Alien Weaponry’s first steps from the paddocks of Waipū to the fields of European metal festivals and arrives a month ahead of the band’s third album. So, it’s no eulogy.
But surprisingly and refreshingly, it’s not as serious as the band’s music – a sound that reminds of the adage that heavy metal exists for young men with no wars to fight.
The spirit of this film, one that even the metal-allergic might find enjoyable, is lighter. It’s more like a proud parent’s 21st birthday speech: it’s rambling, funny, touching, a bit awkward and it possibly goes into too much embarrassing detail. And behind it all is that sense of perennial parental amazement: they grow up so fast.
It’s also fitting because the film, an impressive, six-year, fly-on-the-wall feat of endurance by director Kent Belcher, does have an actual proud dad’s 21st speech. That’s from Neil de Jong, father, metalhead, fluent te reo speaker and music coach to drummer Henry and singer-guitarist Lewis.
Judging by the early family video archive this taps, he and wife Jette have supported their kura kaupapa-educated sons’ musical ambitions to an extreme degree.
That was possibly helped by living somewhere rural where the neighbours weren’t too close. But just as some Kiwi parents have steered offspring to sporting greatness, it seems the de Jongs have pushed their sons into the metal international league.
They managed them on their first forays overseas, and there’s plenty here that’s amusing about a Kiwi mum, dad and two teenagers making a campervan tour out of metal festivals in places such as Slovenia and Germany, especially when Lewis sulks after he’s not allowed to get a souvenir tattoo at one event because he’s not 18 yet, but Henry is – and really rubs it in.
There’s more angst from Lewis a few years later when, restricted to playing at home during the pandemic years, the band is preparing to play with the NZSO, only for him to break his thumb while riding a hire scooter on the day of the show and forcing its cancellation.
Still, it’s a chance for conductor Holly Mathieson to invoke Mozart when talking about the band’s youth and their musical complexity. If that new album has a harpsichord solo, blame her.
But vouching for Alien Weaponry’s metal strengths in interviews are members of bands Gojira, Lamb of God and Chuck Billy, the Native American frontman of Testament. Thankfully, Belcher doesn’t go heavy on the talking heads.
The film is essentially a hang-out film on Alien Weaponry, the adolescent years, captured as they evolve. That includes the band’s one line-up change, after original bassist and Bream Bay College schoolmate Ethan Trembath quit in 2020 for a Bachelor of Music at Otago University and a normal life. But he’s there to help audition his replacements, and he’s at that 21st, with no regrets. And aside from knowing his way around his instrument, his successor, Tūranga Morgan-Edmonds, brings personality and a facial moko to the line-up.
The film doesn’t really examine the band’s use of te reo or their relationship with it, and you might wonder how Alien Weaponry’s genre-adherent guttural vocal delivery benefits the language.
But it’s clear from this film, they’ve taken te reo to places it’s never been and may have made te ao metal a better place.
Rating out of five: ★★★★
Alien Weaponry: Kua Tupu Te Ara, directed by Kent Belcher, is in cinemas now.
