“Jeff and Cyrus believed in their hearts they were headed/For stage
lights and Learjets, and fortune and fame/So in script that made
prominent use of a pentagram/They stenciled their drumheads and guitars
with their names…” That’s a Mountain Goats lyric—but sub in “Lips
and Robb Reiner” for “Jeff and Cyrus” and you have the story of Anvil,
an enthusiastic Canadian metal band who found moderate early 1980s
success, influenced a generation of metal—and then spent 30 years not
making it. Sacha Gervasi’s excellent Anvil! The Story of Anvil follows the scrappy guys through a hope-filled, disastrous European
tour, and the self-financed making of their 13th album. I want to hug
Anvil, buy all their albums and then never listen to any of them.
This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2009.
