Anvil landed on the steel scene within the early ’80s with a convincing affect. There was a steel zeitgeist second taking place world wide—in Japan, Europe, the U.Ok., North America—they usually inserted themselves into it with authority. The Canadian quartet, initially known as Lips, launched a debut effort, Exhausting ‘n’ Heavy, beneath their unique moniker earlier than signing to Attic Information, adopting—ahem—a heavier identify and reissuing mentioned debut in 1981. That first album rapidly discovered favor with the U.Ok. press that was fawning over the burgeoning New Wave of British Heavy Metallic motion on the time.

Anvil match proper into the NWOBHM narrative musically with their hyper-charged, OTT method, and had been welcomed into the fold like long-lost second cousins twice faraway from throughout the Atlantic. Attic had already issued/licensed early efforts by Motörhead, Riot and Judas Priest; they clearly understood on the time that Anvil had a greater shot at success exterior of the band’s Toronto hometown; they usually promoted them accordingly. Kerrang!, the steel journal of document within the U.Ok., championed Anvil in England like conquering heroes, so when the band adopted up their promising (however uneven) debut with 1982’s Metallic on Metallic, the response was overwhelming—cowl tales, options, glowing opinions, full-page photographs.

And because the main tastemakers of the aforementioned steel zeitgeist, English magazines like Kerrang! and Sounds had been largely answerable for placing Anvil on the radar of American steel followers. Although primarily based simply throughout the border from the U.S., Anvil didn’t make inroads there till Metallic on Metallic’s hype caught the eye of a younger technology of metalheads—like Lars Ulrich, Slash and Scott Ian, amongst others—who had been in search of out the more durable, heavier, quicker new sounds. Metallic on Metallic delivered on all counts. Forty-one years later, nobody would name it a thrash or pace steel album, however the seeds of that sound had been being sown right here.

Anvil’s profession arc has been properly documented through 2008’s Anvil! The Story of Anvil documentary (and its subsequent 2022 re-release), and let’s simply say that the promise of Metallic on Metallic didn’t carry the band ahead to an particularly fruitful profession. The lineup of vocalist/guitarist Steve “Lips” Kudlow, drummer Robb Reiner, guitarist/vocalist Dave “Squirrely” Allison and bassist Ian “Dix” Dickson solely lasted one other six years, with Kudlow and Reiner persevering with to hold the torch to this present day. However regardless of the travails of those long-suffering Canadian heshers, Metallic on Metallic stays unassailable, the muse of not solely the band’s decades-long profession, but in addition a key affect on the thrash steel it impressed. Each side of it—from the band’s identify to the quilt picture to the songs herein—screams steel, leaving little doubt that Anvil’s second album clearly belongs in our Corridor of Fame.

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