Anvil – Worth The Weight
Album Review by Adam McCann
Label : SPV/Steamhammer
Year : 1992
An overlooked gem in the Anvil catalogue
After a steady stream of albums and back to back releases of ‘Strength of Steel’ and ‘Pound for Pound’, Anvil took some time to release their next album and as always with Anvil, the puns flow like a steady stream of molten metal; the band alluding the time between albums with a title coupled with the link to the blacksmithing equipment that the band takes its name and with four years passing before ‘Worth the Weight’ appeared in 1992.
Anvil started the new decade with the departure of long time guitarist Dave Allison, a man who alongside Lips had forged the Anvil sound from their inception. Never one to be deterred, Anvil replaced Allison with Sebastian Marino for the ‘Worth the Weight’ and this change can be heard immediately. ‘Worth the Weight’ is faster, louder and technically, it blows the previous albums out of the water. However, it does take a slight detour from the classic Anvil sound and that necessarily is not a bad thing as ‘Worth the Weight’ shows that Anvil had adapted to the sounds of the 90’s.
Of course, Lips’ lyrics are still there, they can be rude, crude and tongue in cheek, but as always with Lips, there are quite important social observations such as postnatal depression during ‘Infanticide’, child abuse by religious authorities in ‘Sins of the Flesh’ and the mentally demanding, thankless job of a coroner during ‘Embalmer’. Moreover, with ‘Worth the Weight’, shows no sign of Anvil slowing down and although ‘One the Way to Hell’ drops into an extremely similar riff to the verse of ‘Snowblind’ by Black Sabbath, whilst the riff to ‘Embalmer’ draws parallels to ‘Tommyknockers’ by Blind Guardian.
Whilst Lips’ voice isn’t always the best, there is a plucky charm which goes with Anvil in that it has you rooting for the underdog and whilst the slight change in sound for ‘Worth the Weight’ might take more than a few minutes to get adjusted to, the album is certainly a hidden gem of a career by a band dominated by the Anvil movie and the seminal ‘Metal on Metal.
Rating : 77/100
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLsPuWH1SmY
MHF Magazine/Adam McCann
