Fondly I recall my first taste of Vice, which transpired during a Sunday afternoon at a seedy watering hole in Toronto, Canada. My friends and I had driven up from Chicago to attend an all-night bacchanalia that Friday, and with no sleep between then and Sunday, we were if nothing if not completely cracked out (ahem, figuratively!). At the bar I found a copy of the free Montreal glossy, which back then was still relatively unknown to Williamsburg hipsters. Now, whoever said that the printed word has an ability to change the world (at least, my world) knew what was up. During my first reading of Vice, I laughed so hard I nearly peed in my pants. This was a decade ago, during my pacifier-sucking rave days. I like to think I've grown up some since then—it's clear the guys at Vice have. Enter their first feature-length film, Heavy Metal in Baghdad.

The film is derived from a VBS series documenting the only heavy metal band in Iraq, Acrassicauda ("black scorpion" in Latin). Heavy Metal In Baghdad follows the band from 2003 to 2006, as they struggle to stay alive and play metal following the toppling of Saddam's regime and through the growing and bloody insurgency, before the band members finally flee to Syria (and later Turkey). It's a stark look at the difficulties of performing out in a Muslim country where the government associates metalheads with Satan worshippers. Growing your hair long, wearing a Metallica T-shirt or head-banging at a show could send one to jail, not to mention that at any minute a Scud missile could come down and cause some serious damage—as one did unfortunately to the band's practice space.

Since the magazine's founding by two welfare scammers and a recovering smack addict in 1994, Vice has transformed itself into an international media empire and in more recent years—perhaps influenced by financial backers Viacom—reinvented itself as more than just indie culture with sleazy sensibilities covering the taboo topic du jour. ("The Vice Guide to Shagging Muslims," anyone?) Since they've gone global, they've tackled more serious issues (while, of course, still keeping to their provocations). A case in point, Vice's one-year-old Internet TV venture VBS. With little more than a cameraman and a pair of balls, VBS reporters travel to the most volatile regions around the world and dive into gonzo-style reporting on topics—from the nuclear ruins of Chernobyl to a skate park in Beirut funded by Hezbollah—that the world's Anderson Coopers would hardly consider covering. HMIB is, so far, the height of this new direction.

The movie is less rockumentary than cinema verité for the scruffy and socially conscious set. The 84-minute features gives voice to a generation of Iraqi youths who yearn for peace and the freedom to play their music loud. In one scene, without a trace of irony, Acrassicauda's bassist Firas Al Lateef compares life in Baghdad to the cover of Iron Maiden's Death on the Road. "When you're in this level of hopelessness, you're ready to die," he confesses. "I hope I live somewhere else, not in Iraq, so I can get long hair, long beard, Zakk Wylde-style." Starting a band in Brooklyn never sounded so easy.

Heavy Metal in Baghdad makes its theatrical debuts in New York City and Los Angeles on May 23rd. The DVD release date is June 10, 2008.