Pin It  These go to eleven   Irony's assault on heavy metal
Having already embraced mullets and trucker hats with ironic
glee, it was just a matter of time before hipsters sunk their
cooler-than-thou talons into heavy metal. The music's camp value
is well-established: This Is Spinal Tap first mined hard rock's
excesses for laughs 20 years ago, and bands such as Manowar and
Gwar have been lampooning them at least that long.  But recent
albums from Andrew W.K., Satanicide and the Darkness suggest the
ironists are now descending en masse.  As Jack Black has shown
in his prog-metal goof band Tenacious D and, more recently, in
his film School of Rock, it's certainly possible to send up
rock's outlandish trappings and simultaneously get a genuine
kick out of the music. But when the joy isn't there, it's a
tired exercise.  Case in point: Pop-metal party boy Andrew W.K.
For all his admonishments to party till you puke, there's
nothing especially fun about his latest record, The Wolf. In
fact, there's something vague