I don’t really want to compare Global Metal with Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, but when in the introduction, our familiar world weary anthropologist metal-head from that film, Sam Dunn, reminds us that he did indeed make a film about metal culture before this one, it’s hard not too. And in that sense, this is the inferior documentary, but by no means a bad or uninteresting one. I’m not sure if it was ever supposed to be viewed as a “sequel”, but specifically, Global Metal does just feel more of an afterthought and lacks the weight, enthusiasm and resources of it’s predecessor to carry it through completely. Perhaps the passion of our buoyant young filmmakers has dwindled after the successful first film, or maybe it would have faired better as a TV special or series, because trying to be another cinematic looking feature doco, that AHJ was so successful at being, is probably it’s biggest downfall - at least in the beginning.