They recovered somewhat on 1988's heavier Pound for Pound, which featured trademark sex songs like "Safe Sex" and "Toe Jam," as well as the hockey anthem "Blood on the Ice," but it was too late. Creatively disappointing, Strength of Steel effectively killed what little momentum Anvil had left. Attic issued a collection of hits and outtakes called Backwaxed in 1985, but the official follow-up to Forged in Fire, Strength of Steel, wasn't released until four years later in 1987, when the band licensed it to Metal Blade. While the band hung in limbo, heavy metal exploded - a wave of hook-heavy pop-metal bands conquered the mainstream, while avowed Anvil fans like Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax (the latter of which started out playing Anvil covers) catapulted the genre into new realms of heaviness, far beyond anything Anvil had ever recorded. Seeking a better stateside deal, the band's manager asked Attic to release them from their contract, but a new label offer never materialized. The 1983 follow-up, Forged in Fire, refined Anvil's signature sound while adding more musical variety, and furthered their growing following.Īnvil's success stopped right there, though. Anvil snagged opening slots on tours with the likes of Iron Maiden and Motörhead, among others, and played significant festival dates in Japan and England. Their groundbreaking second album, Metal on Metal, adopted a much faster, heavier style, and took the metal underground by storm. Upon signing to the Canadian independent label Attic Records, the band changed its name to Anvil, and reissued Hard 'n' Heavy with an updated cover in 1981.
Zany antics notwithstanding, Anvil's musical contributions were very real their fastest songs were some of the earliest speed metal laid to wax, while jazz-trained drummer Robb Reiner set new technical standards for the genre, including pioneering the double bass drum technique that's become a staple of much extreme metal since. Initially known as Lips, the band added bassist Ian Dickson and rhythm guitarist Dave Allison, and in 1980 recorded an independent album titled Hard 'n' Heavy, which introduced their penchant for sexual explicitness. They had been playing music together since their teens.
The tenacious metallers issued their 19th studio album, Impact Is Imminent, in 2022.Īnvil were formed in Toronto in 1978 by childhood friends Steve "Lips" Kudlow (vocals/guitar) and Robb Reiner (drums). In 2009, a documentary film by the band's former teenage roadie helped break them to the broader audience they never found in their prime. Undaunted, Anvil soldiered on, continuing to record and tour whenever possible. Geographic isolation, label and management difficulties, and shifting musical trends all conspired against them, leaving them largely the province of cultists and collectors just a few short years later. Anvil's second and third albums, Metal on Metal and Forged in Fire, made significant waves in the metal community in 19, but despite the respect of musicians and metalheads alike, stardom was not to be theirs. Indebted to the likes of Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and many others from across the Atlantic, Anvil nonetheless played louder, faster, and heavier than their heroes, in the process laying the groundwork for the thrash movement that took over heavy metal's underground in the '80s. Toronto, Canada's Anvil were one of the first North American bands to push the sound and style of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal one step further.
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