anvil juggernaut of justice

Released: 20 June 2011 Label: SPV

We all know Anvil and their story a little better than we did a few years ago. After a couple of decades in the wilderness, the plucky Canadians finally hit pay dirt when a movie from Sacha Gervasi became a shock box office hit and we all fell in love with them in a way we never did back in the eighties.

But why have we all started worshipping so fervently at the Anvil altar? Their story isn’t so different to hundreds of other nearly rock stars while musically, Anvil has never really been about anything other than merely functional heavy metal.

Well, the widespread affection for Anvil is born of the fact that in them we see a little of ourselves and why we all got into metal in the first place. The never say die attitude; the indestructible spirit that has kept them laughing in the face of endless adversity; the unflinching belief that any disaster can be overcome by turning up your guitar one louder. In short, they epitomise what metal stands for and why we love it so much.

Founder members Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow and Rob Reiner are on record as saying this is the best album of their career because, with the eyes of the world on them like never before, it had to be. In truth, it’s not vastly different to any other Anvil album. No doubt thanks to a few extra pennies earned from the movie, the production has a certain commercial gloss previously lacking, but otherwise it’s the same full on metal mix which finds the band somewhere between Mötley Crüe, Judas Priest and Spinal Tap.

Songs like On Fire, Turn It Up, and Fukeneh are every bit as brash and dumb as the titles suggest and all the better for it. It’s abundantly clear that, even on their darkest days, anything as untrue as grunge or nu-metal never figured on the Anvil agenda.

Anvil have been given a chance that few would have bet on five years ago. True to form though, the band has never stopped believing and having finally realised their childhood dreams, they are now equally determined to ride the wave as long and as hard as they possibly can. And that has to be admired

by Marcus Jervis