vote
6.5
- Band:
ANVIL - Duration: 00:45:30
- Available from: 28/06/2024
- Label:
-
AFM Records
In the world of heavy metal there are characters who go far beyond the simple ‘attachment to the shirt’, who go beyond the meaning of flag; for their profound and eternal dedication to the music of molten metal, continuing undaunted on their own path, openly not caring about how, perhaps, some things have changed over the years.
Among these, a place is certainly occupied by Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow, who has been at the helm of Anvil for over forty years, who, with the present “One And Only”, mark box number twenty in his career record company.
And they do it with those characteristics that have always distinguished them: direct riffs, rhythms that can be remembered within three-seconds-three, guaranteed catchiness, simple lyrics. Perhaps an overly obvious recipe, but Steve and his companions (above all their drummer friend Robb Reiner) like it that way, from the first “Hard’n’Heavy” to the success of “Metal On Metal”, from the powerful “Pound For Pound” until the last “Impact Is Imminent”, renewing the formula of the three words (here’s the perfect number again) present in the title, with the classic and historical anvil to reinvent itself every time in the most disparate forms (you said “Speed Of Sound”).
For this new release, the wrought iron tool appears alone in the middle of the stage, illuminated by a bull’s-eye, while Anvil’s “V” extends its vertex trying to scratch it, instead obtaining only a few sparks.
Fiery splinters that we find throughout the twelve pieces contained in “One And Only”, less powerful than the previous album released by the Canadian band, but equally vigorous and honest. Lips’ uvula has lost tone and power over the years and so even the most tense songs (“Fight For Your Rights” and “Blind Rage”) have given way to episodes where a catchy and rhythmic rock is constantly master. Real anthems follow one another: from the title track to the subsequent “Feed Your Fantasy”, in which a certain creative gap from a lyrical point of view also begins to emerge, often reducing itself to the slavish repetition of the title of the single piece, in a sort of competition to elect the most successful choir; clear sign of a decline in general inspiration, against which there remained that irrepressible desire to move forward mentioned at the beginning of the review. Secret, or pure stubbornness (everyone thinks as they want) which, if in the case of Anvil it could even have something anachronistic about it, would instead be taken into consideration by the new recruits, sometimes defeatist or unmotivated in the face of the first ones, but inevitable, difficulties.
