"Crankin' it up, fulfillin' my need": A case for Anvil's metal legacy

What does documentary-hero status mean for a man who's as sweet and shaggy on-camera as Steve "Lips" Kudlow of Anvil? How many of the people who've seen Sacha Gervasi's documentary Anvil! The Story Of Anvil will reconsider the Canadian metal underdogs' music on its own merits, and how many will simply hold Kudlow and drummer Robb Reiner dear as the goofs who made a movie-comeback 20 years after missing their chance to get famous by playing rock festivals and breaking out dildos onstage? The film does feature admiring quips about the band's music from Motörhead's Lemmy and Metallica's Lars Ulrich, suggesting Anvil filled in a crucial missing link somewhere between New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, hair metal, and the '80s thrash boom. Ahead of Thursday's free screening of the film at the Memorial Union, The A.V. Club took another listen through Anvil albums new and old and identified a few songs that might define Anvil's musical legacy.

"Metal On Metal"
"Metal on metal, that's what I crave!" Kudlow bellows on the title and opening track to the 1982 album Metal On Metal. The band dreams of re-capturing this high point throughout the film, and even goes back into the studio with Metal producer Chris Tsangarides. The riff and the spirited-meathead lyrics suggest an upside-down cross made of discarded stripper poles, but Reiner's hi-hat work on the verses makes it so much more sharp than your average crotch-grinding anthem. (That said, it's definitely a crotch-grinding anthem to end 'em all.)

"March Of The Crabs"
When Kudlow's not singing about sex or debauchery or brutality—you know, when he's not singing—the band can achieve an Iron Maiden-like sense of the epic. This instrumental highlight from Metal owes just as much, again, to Reiner. Like any excellent metal drummer, he knows there's so much more to it than speed and bass-pedal clobbering. The back-and-forth between ride cymbal and snare makes the song swing as much as it rocks.

"Burning Bridges"
Anvil's reunion sessions with Tsangarides—which, as the film documents, almost fell apart in a tearful argument between Kudlow and Reiner—yielded a fitting comeback for the band, 2009's album This Is Thirteen. Kudlow's voice doesn't quite smolder above the mix like it used to, but otherwise Thirteen restores Anvil's sound to all its contrasting grandeur and crudeness. "Burning Bridges" sets the grinder to medium-speed and pulls out a few fairly imaginative, concise guitar solos. It's got the kind of hook that will sound distantly familiar to anyone who's listened to a fair amount of metal, but don't take for granted the way Reiner and Kudlow slam back and forth together in the song's plodding, menacing progress.

"Thumb Hang"
Here's a safe guess: The more a subject's been thrown about in a junior-high boys' bathroom, the more eager Anvil is to write a song about it. Some adolescents get over their obsession with medieval torture as they get hornier, but that didn't stop Anvil from finally recording the long-talked-about "Thumb Hang" for Thirteen. "Thumbs will twist / Can you resist? / Beware the names / On the Inquisitor's list," Kudlow leers. Like Metallica (whose massive fame might have helped to wipe Anvil off the map), Anvil takes on an accusatory note in this song—"Manipulation is here / Governed by fear / All in the name of the cross"—but more than anything it's just over-the-top vicarious sadism. Good thing maturity hasn't ruined it.