ANVIL - METAL ON METAL

CHAINS OF DEATH HAVE BEEN UNLEASHED!

After the somewhat anonymous Hard 'n' Heavy record it must have been quite a shock for their fans to see how much the band had progressed in just one year.

They really moved the goalposts with Metal on Metal, the title kinda describes what I'm talking about here because this is so much more metal than their debut.

This album predates the thrash wave with one year (Kill 'Em All and Show No Mercy coming out in 1983.) This is not a thrash metal album by any means but this is certainly one of the heaviest speed and heavy metal albums of 1982.

The albumkicks off with Anvil's biggest hit, The metal anthem 'Metal on Metal', which completely hammers the listener with some crushingly heavy riffs. The second track Mothra feels like a bit like Judas Priest on speed. After the somewhat dull heavy rocker Stop Me, Anvil showed the world what real metal sounds like with the instrumental song March of the Crabs, a song that 'Lips' described as the blueprint for Metallica. Which I fully agree with, because the song sounds like it could have been a bonus track on Kill 'Em All. The following songs; Jackhammer, Heat Sink and Tag Team are three pretty good songs. Scenery is a bit more mainstream and it reminds me a bit of the tracks School Love and AC/DC from the bands debut album, which means tongue-in-cheek and quite simplistic heavy metal songs. The track Tease Me, Please Me on the other hand feels more at home on your typical hair metal album (think Ratt). The very last track 666 brings out the speed and the satanic undertones. 'Lips' commented the song as the blueprint for Slayer and yes, I can certainly hear them influencing Slayer on their 'Show No Mercy' album. But at the same time I think Venom and Judas Priest had a bigger influence on Slayer.

If Anvil would have written 10 songs in the style of 'Metal on Metal' or '666', then this would be considered to be a Speed or perhaps even a thrash metal record. But Anvil's Metal on Metal is a bit too diversified and not always that serious

or hard which I know was a turn off for some thrash fans when listening to Anvil's music.

But it's perhaps the bands crazy and wild antics that made them so unique in the first place. In 1982 there weren't that many bands that had such a heavy sound like Anvil had, sure the NWOBHM had started but if you were in Canada in the early eighties and wanted some real heavy music, Anvil was more or less your only choice at the time. Anvil is a groundbreaking band and Metal on Metal is their most popular album and the album that solidified them as metal legends.

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