Anvil
Hard'n'Heavy

Anyone who has ever attended a concert of the Canadian band Anvil during their over thirty-year career (formed in 1978, still going strong and with rock-solid determination) will certainly remember them for the show's highlight: the guitar solo using a dildo by the leader and singer Steve "Lips" Kudlow. Aaaah, these are the kind of things that make a person happy to listen to heavy metal!

On the other hand, sex has always been a fundamental theme, indeed, I dare say the trademark of Lips and his mates. After all, just scroll through the tracklist of this 1981 debut, "Hard 'n' Heavy" (a title that says it all): titles like "I Want You Both (With Me)", "Bondage", "Ooh Baby" and "Bedroom Game" leave no room for doubt, and will earn them the respect of metalheads who have made the holy trinity "Sex Drugs Rock n' Roll" their reason for living, but also and especially the ire of feminist associations, which will give them trouble for a long time.

But the music? We're talking about music here, right? So let's talk about it. It’s a recipe as simple as it is effective: 1/3 AC/DC (an explicit passion of the band, to the point of naming a track of this album after the Young brothers' group), 1/3 NWOBHM, which at that time was literally dominating the world metal scene, and 1/3 Seventies hard blues, Ted Nugent style for instance. From the former, they take the quick-setting cement riffs, from the latter speed, heaviness, and pyrotechnical solos, and from the third, the warm-blooded passion (and, last but not least, the aforementioned sexual themes). The dance opens with the concert classic "School Love", and up to the concluding, energetic "Bondage" it's 40 minutes of heavy metal as hard as the hammer on the cover and as hot as the sparks released: you get carried away by the pounding bass of "At The Apartment", the Kiss-like festivity of "I Want You Both", the earthquake called "Bedroom Game", the highly successful cover of "Paint It Black". Always starring, besides obviously the screeching guitar, is the pounding drums of Robb Reiner, the only survivor from the early days along with Lips; completing the lineup are Ian Dickson on bass and Dave Allison on the other guitar and occasionally on vocals (on the already mentioned "I Want You Both" and "Oh Jane").

What else to add? What kind of music it is you've already figured out on your own by now; if you're a fan and haven't yet discovered Anvil, make up for it immediately and rest assured you're in for a treat!