In April of 1973 Steve "Lips" Kudlow and Robb Reiner began their journey for fame and fortune on the long hard road of rock music. It was during this time that Lips and Robb began to create their distinctive sound that would become one of the most influential music to ever come out of Canada in the heavy rock genre of music. When they teamed up with Dave Allison and Ian Dickson in 1977 they became Lips. In 1980 the foursome released an independent album called 'Hard 'n Heavy'. It was a self produced and manufactured album. Shortly after, the band was signed by Attic Records and at that time they changed their name to Anvil. The band and record company didn’t want any possible confusion with the disco band Lipps Inc. In 1981 they re-released the 'Hard 'n Heavy' album under the new Anvil name, and the rest is speed metal history! The Lips version of this album is quite rare as only 1000 copies were manufactured. The music is the same but the cover art work is a simple lip print, red on white with the name LIPS printed in black.

POUND FOR POUND (1988) METAL BLADE/ENIGMA

  1. Blood On The Ice
  2. Corporate Preacher
  3. Toe Jam
  4. Safe Sex
  5. Where Does All The Money Go?
  6. Brain Burn
  7. Senile King
  8. Machine Gun
  9. Fire In The Night
  10. Cramps (unlisted outro)

Line-up:

Lips - Lead Guitar and Lead vocals

Robb Reiner - Drums

Dave Allison - Rhythm Guitar

Ian Dickson - Bass

Anvil are one of many legendary bands I've never really gotten into. I've owned this album before, only to sell it to a local pawn shop. Turns out they still had my copy for sale about 5 years later, so I decided to snag it again.

Anvil play fast heavy metal, and they are considered to be one of the originators of he speed metal genre. But by 1988, when the band was an established act, speed metal as a genre had changed quite a lot. Thus 'Pound For Pound' might be considered by many as "just" a regular heavy metal platter. There's nothing particularly wrong with this album, but for this listener it is sadly easily forgotten. Lyrically the bands tackles everything from sex to hockey to TV preachers. They don't seem too serious about things though, and the fun aspect of the lyrics will either appeal or appall. But if you are a fan of 80's metal, Anvil is pretty essential.

Killer tracks: Blood On The Ice, Senile King, Fire In The Night

Anvil also appear on:  

V/A - 'The Metal Merchant - Cheap, Hard & Heavy Vol. 12'

V/A - 'Metal Power - Volume 1'

 

Lips guest appearances:

Powergod - 'Long Live The Loud - That's Metal Lesson II'

 

Related artists:

Overkill