Anvil - Pounding the Pavement

Anvil Pounding the Pavement cover
Anvil
Pounding the Pavement
SPV/Steamhammer
2018
6.5
Anvil seems to fail in failing to disappear from the world. They might actually survive along with cockroaches a nuclear holocaust that doesn’t seem to be all that far away these days than it was in their 80s heyday.
 
Album numero 17 for the Canadians with the same lineup – something that they have not been able to boast in the recent past. A more streamlined and edited sound seems to keep them sounding tighter, but at the same time does seem to steal a bit of their flair away.
 
I feel this album to be comparable to their previous “Anvil is Anvil”, but maybe a bit better. “Bitch in the Box” that opens the album is not too bad, but it’s a bit too silly, while “Ego” no matter how cool seems to be missing something. “Doing What I Want” is also another almost good song that seems to be losing points from not being able to be as intense as it should… ie Motorhead level – intense… the better tracks are actually on side “B” or towards the end of the album if you get it on CD starting with “Rock That Shit” and moving onward (with the instrumental title track that precedes it not being bad either).
 
Unfortunate as it is for them, Anvil weren’t business savvy, so they avoided hiring a good commanding vocalist with a personality larger than Lips’ (if that’d be possible)… which really cost them. Their persistence is both commendable and surprising, as they keep on releasing albums without a care in the world, which makes it both hard to hate them, but also hard to justify them too. They simply are not offering the product that could take them to the top. They weren’t able to do that in the past, despite some impressive albums at the start of their career and they are most definitely not able to do it now either, despite releasing a couple of very good albums around the release of the documentary that gave them another “chance”. So, in the shadow of the now disbanded Motorhead and the zombies of Venom, the Canucks still stick it out with no end in sight. Good for them and cool for us, but it almost feels to be in vain at this point. Well pointless or poignant, who am I to say? I love people like Anvil or Thor (incidentally also Canadian), who rock out without caring. Rock on no matter what naysayers say.