ANVIL @ DE DREEF - VORSELAAR

Anvil’s debut album Hard ’N’ Heavy is an 80s metal classic that should have turned them into superstars. Mainman Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow looks back on a career of missed chances

History doesn’t always get it right. While every metalhead knows that the 80s began with a flurry of classic albums from Ozzy, Priest, Maiden, Motörhead and many more, one of the most important and influential records of the decade’s first couple of years rarely gets a mention. Released in the spring of 1981, Toronto trio Anvil’s debut album, Hard ’N’ Heavy, was one of the catalysts that set metal’s wheels rolling towards the birth of thrash and beyond, influencing Metallica, Anthrax and countless more iconic bands in the process.