Anvil is Anvil! Anvil is Canadian! Anvil has not given a shit what anybody thinks about them for the last 40 years, so writing this review seems pointless. As an Anvil fan, I’m going to do so anyways because if Anvil can keep making music because they can, I’m going to approach reviews in the same spirit. Anvil is the Adam Sandler of metal. Even at their finest hour, they got a bad rap from pretentious critics who took their work and measured it against the genre as a whole. The only proper way to review Anvil is by measuring their most recent effort against their back catalog; a catalog that has seen the good (Hard ‘n’ Heavy, Metal on Metal, Forged in Fire), the bad (Absolutely No Alternative, Plenty of Power), and in the case of Legal at Last, the downright ugly.
Really boys? An angel hitting an anvil bong? Having been dismissed as the real life Spinal Tap for far too long, Anvil figures if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. More power to ya! Now enough gawking at this cringe worthy album art. On to the meat and potatoes, or in this case, the poutine. If you’ve enjoyed everything else Anvil has put out, you’ll like the songs themselves. They’re simple and to the point. However, the lyrics don’t match up with the music.
The lyrical content ranges from marijuana (the title track, “Nabbed in Nebraska”) and chemtrails (you guessed it, “Chemtrails”), to corruption (“Talking to the Wall”) and pollution (“Plastic in Paradise”). One can say Legal at Last is their message album. There’s nothing wrong with being socially conscious. Its been a staple of metal as far back as 1970 when Black Sabbath attacked the Vietnam War on Paranoid. I just wish Anvil would’ve put more effort into these issue based songs. 80s classics like “Winged Assassins” and “Fire in the Night” prove that Anvil can write a complex song if they want to. It’s cheap and disheartening to hear these lyrics against a backdrop that’s reserved for odes to sex and metal.
There are a handful of tracks I enjoy. “Glass House” sings about how we’re being spied by everyone and everything. I’m sure a disappointed FBI agent is watching me right now through my computer camera, wondering why the hell I’m reviewing the new Anvil album at 1 in the morning, but I digress. Knowingly or not, there’s even a nod to Priest in the lyric, “Watched by the electric eye that has no tears to cry.” Horns up to that!
There’s also the double bass blast of “Food for the Vulture” and “Bottom Line” which sounds like a rehash of “Mothra”. These songs are back to back and wouldn’t sound out of place on one of Anvil’s classic 80s albums. Unfortunately, the party stops here. Legal at Last ranges from OK songs to lackluster songs, but I take major issue with “Said and Done”. A wise man once said “imitation is the greatest form of flattery”. However, there’s a fine line between flattery and blatant lifting. It only takes 30 seconds to notice the uncomfortable similarity between “Said and Done” and Black Sabbath’s “Lord of This World”. I’d expect this from a group of potted up hipsters whose idea of writing music is ripping off Iommi. A group of potted up Canadians? Come on Anvil.
I wouldn’t go as far to say this is the worst Anvil album, but it is one of their weaker offerings. Chances are the world will be in the same screwed up state its in now, or even worse, by the time Anvil gets to their next release. If they’re going to stick with this subject matter, hopefully they kick it up a notch.
4 out of 10
Label: AFM Records
Genre: Heavy Metal
For fans of: The Rods, Riot, Exciter