2/28/2024 0 Comments Anvil band songsRhyming “quarantine”, “COVID-19” and “vaccine” truly strays a fine line between genius and ridicule. The biggest culprit is Lockdown, a song that veers into the unintentionally hilarious thanks to its extremely on-the-nose references to the pandemic. Additionally, those with even a limited knowledge of ANVIL will be aware they often stray the line between parody and sincerity (and often so with a knowing wink), but Impact has a few SPINAL TAP clangers in its midst. ![]() ![]() While at this point Kudlow’s voice is one of ANVIL’s idiosyncrasies, it’s hard not to imagine how a stronger voice would handle these tracks. While certainly distinctive and full of character, Kudlow’s voice often strains as soon as it attempts a melody with more than a few notes, such as on Ghost Shadow. One of ANVIL’s more divisive elements has always been the vocals. While broadly enjoyable, there are a few moments where Impact Is Imminent falls flat however. While a bit redundant to have two versions of the same track in the album proper, Gomez’s big band horn section is nothing short of good fun. Ostensibly two variations of the same track, the tracks are over the top thrashy blues jams where the ANVIL lads let off a little steam. Speaking of shuffles, it would be remiss not to mention Impact’s duology of instrumentals, Teabag and Gomez. Similarly, the blues metal strut of Another Gun Fight allows Kudlow to get his best snarls out to the beat of a hellish shuffle. When they’ve got a bit more fire in their belly, ANVIL are at their best, and the venom of Someone To Hate is an album highlight. ![]() Someone To Hate sounds like early OVERKILL with the BPM turned down, its lightning-fast guitar leads countered by punkish guitar riffs and call-and-response gang shouts. In contrast, elsewhere ANVIL lean heavily in to the metal sound that they helped pioneer (or at least prototype). Elsewhere, channelling the more mid-70s rock sound is (the ironically titled) Don’t Look Back – a track with shades of KISS and BLUE ÖYSTER CULT as if performed by METALLICA. With its swaggering riff and simple, hooky chorus, it almost sounds like an off-cut of JUDAS PRIEST’s Killing Machine or British Steel. On the older side, you have cuts like Fire Rain. Throughout Impact Is Imminent, ANVIL veer between two sides of a heavy metal generational change, the flipping point between the decades of the 70s and 80s. While on the album’s heavier side, it sets the tone perfectly. The band’s playing is tight and urgent, with the marching power chords providing the thundering foundation for Kudlow’s sneering lyrics before everything erupts with an obligatorily furious guitar solo. The menacing stomp of opener Take A Lesson sees Kudlow chronicle the highs and lows of his career, painting ANVIL’s story as a cautionary tale of the music business. True to its name, the album gets off to an impactful start. ![]() Their latest, Impact Is Imminent, is no different, treading the same ANVIL-flattened path the band have always done – a mix of NWOBHM influences and the progenitor elements of thrash and speed. Similar to a band like SAXON, an ANVIL release is a stylistic time capsule to a certain era of heavy metal – just with increasingly sleek production values. Throughout, ANVIL have defiantly stayed the course, ignoring trends not just in mainstream music but within the metal sub-genre itself. The band’s founding members, singer and guitarist Steve “Lips” Kudlow and drummer Rob Reiner (accompanied by various others), have delivered albums upon albums of solid heavy metal at a consistent pelt since the early 80s. Anvil's antics on and off stage, the setbacks they suffered, and their determination to keep going have been compared to the fictional band Spinal Tap.For band who never quite attained the fame of their many successors, ANVIL hardly need an introduction. Reviewers have described Anvil as a pioneering heavy metal band that was popular in the 1980s but then faded into obscurity in the 1990s, while refusing to stop playing, recording, and gigging. As of 2022, the band has released nineteen studio albums, and has been cited as having influenced many notable heavy metal groups, including Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax and Metallica. The band currently consists of founding members Steve "Lips" Kudlow (vocals, guitar), Robb Reiner (drums), and Chris Robertson (bass). Anvil is a Canadian heavy metal band from Toronto, Ontario, formed in 1978.
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