Ever since Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Co. made the heavy metal mockumentary, “This Is Spinal Tap,” the very form of music that group lovingly lampooned has been reduced to a punchline. No sooner does a well-intentioned tribe of metal mates don the black leather pants and the Flying V guitars then some smart-aleck is pronouncing them “total ‘Spinal Tap,’ dude!”—and all of this before the band even launches into an epic celebrating the mystical, magical properties of Stonehenge.

WHAT: Anvil

WHEN: Doors open at 7 p.m. Tuesday (16-and-over show)

WHERE: Town Ballroom, 681 Main St.

TICKETS: $18 advance, $22 at the door

INFO: 852-3900, www.townballroom.com, www.tickets.com

When the documentary “Anvil! The Story of Anvil” was released early last year, few would have pegged it for a hit. But it managed to revive the career of the now middle-aged metal band from Toronto. (Both the movie and the band can be seen at the Town Ballroom on Tuesday. The documentary is at 8 p. m., followed by Anvil in concert.) Anvil’s career hadn’t really been stagnating so much as obliviously chugging along, fueled only by the force of will displayed by original members guitarist/ vocalist Steve “Lips” Kudlow and drummer Robb Reiner (not to be confused with “Spinal Tap” director Rob Reiner).

These two just refused to kick it in the head and get proper jobs, despite the fact that what heyday Anvil had experienced— the group was a solid, B-level support act at its commercial zenith—was now a quarter century in the past. (In 1995, the group was joined by bassist Glenn “Glenn Five” Gyorffy.)

Like Mickey Rourke’s character in “The Wrestler”—or perhaps more appropriately, the real-life Keith Richards, whose whole career has been a tribute to bullheaded fortitude—Anvil refused to die quietly, preferring instead to wear the scars of public indifference like a gang-member wears his colors.

Carrying on while failing miserably— man, that is so metal!

On the verge

Back in the middle of the 1980s, Anvil was riding the wave originally set into motion by British bands fronting the NWOBHM—that’s “new wave of British heavy metal”—among them Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Judas Priest and, to a lesser degree, Motorhead and Saxon. (Priest and Motorhead came from an earlier generation, but were lumped in with this lot, nonetheless.) Before Metallica broke through to the big time with its blend of British-based twin-guitar harmonies and the relentless tempos soon to be known as “thrash,” Anvil had earned a bit of a name for itself with the cult classic “Metal on Metal.” In keeping with the form’s tendency to overstate the obvious, Anvil’s album cover had, yes, an anvil on it. It also boasted song titles like “666,” “Mothra,” “Jackhammer” and “March of the Crabs.” Subtlety, you see, is so not metal.

Laugh if you must, but “Metal on Metal” has aged rather well. In “Anvil: The Story of Anvil,” director Sascha Gervasi corrals the likes of Motorhead’s Lemmy, Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine, and Guns ’N Roses/Velvet Revolver legend Slash to sing Anvil’s praises. The general gist of their cheer-leading suggests that Anvil was just plain unlucky, and deserved a much larger piece of the pie than it was initially granted.

“Anvil was always one of those bands that just put on this really amazing live performance,” says Slash during the film. “They should’ve made it a lot bigger than they did.”

Lemmy, a man who suffers fools about as willingly as he foregoes drinking and smoking, practically gushes: “They’re a great band, yeah. I always liked Anvil.”

Don’t believe these guys? Visit the iTunes store, type in “Metal on Metal,” and read the customer reviews section—all seven pages of it. Here, folks of various ages— graying metal-heads who recall seeing Anvil open for Maiden or the Scorpions back in the day, or newbies who weren’t even born at that point—heap glowing descriptives on Anvil, and place the band in a lineage that includes the much more successful Anthrax, Slayer, Megadeth and Metallica.

Why? In truth, Anvil is not the Velvet Underground or Big Star of heavy metal—those bands would eventually boast a far-reaching influence that belied the relative commercial ignorance afforded them during their immediate milieu. “Metal on Metal” is good, but it’s also goofy. It can be difficult, listening to it today, to ascertain whether the humor that abounds is intentional or accidental—just as it was difficult back in the mid-’80s to tell if Lips was kidding or if he thought he was being sexy when he would employ a sex toy in lieu of a glass slide during the band’s concerts. (Mmm hmm, I did indeed witness this as a teen.)

There’s something relentlessly spirited about the whole thing, though, and the band is indeed tight, ferocious, purposeful. Even if it’s biggest, most grandiose epic is an ode to a fictional monster from a deliciously awful 1961 Japanese fantasy film.

That, too, is so metal.

Back in action

Reiner and Lips met in Toronto when they were 14, formed a band, did well locally, got signed, and did indeed make it to the arenas of the world, even if they never transcended opening-act status. Gervasi’s film opens with Anvil in all its metal glory, sharing the bill during a massive metal-fest in Japan with the likes of Whitesnake, Bon Jovi and the Scorpions, all of whom would go on to become metal’s reigning millionaires. It’s 1984, and Anvil, unbeknownst to its members, is as big as it’s ever gonna get.

Fast-forward 25 years and Gervasi shows us Anvil in action once again. The band has lost nothing, sound-wise, but look closely—there is less hair (even if the guys still wear it long); there are a few more crow’s feet around the bugged-out eyes; a few more pounds of belly strain the waistbands of still skin-tight trousers. Lips is celebrating his 50th birthday, playing inside a sports bar in suburban Toronto. In the film, Reiner answers a fan’s query regarding the band’s bout with tough times and reduced fortunes this way: “I can answer that in one word. Two words. Three: We don’t have good management.” Indeed.

“Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true/Or is it something worse/that sends me down to the river, though I know the river is dry?” asks Bruce Springsteen during his epic “The River.” It’s a question that applies to Anvil, certainly, but also to any and everyone else who has ever stuck with a dream when all empirical evidence—plus spouses, family members, reality itself—suggests that doing so is more foolish than brave.

Not giving up; insisting on sticking it to the man even if the man stopped paying attention a long time ago; clinging to what you believe in, even if popular taste has moved on—that is so metal.