The second of
Anvil's two influential cult classics,
Forged in Fire essentially refines the blueprint laid out on
Metal on Metal, showing a band more firmly in control of its muse. Lips' vocal performance is more polished and varied, yet no less unhinged; the technical riffery of the uptempo numbers is even more challenging; and
Robb Reiner delivers a jaw-dropping performance, pulling out his genre-changing double-bass-drum technique on nearly every song and never letting the record's momentum flag. Even with all the blistering intensity on display here,
Forged in Fire isn't the all-out assault of Kill 'Em All;
Anvil lacked the darker visions of the coming thrash movement, clearly having too much fun to conjure a tough-guy image. (For all their accomplishments, you've never seen
Metallica play a guitar solo with a vibrator, have you?) The heart of the album lies in the speed metal mayhem: classics like "Shadow Zone," "Future Wars," and the awe-inspiring "Winged Assassins" sit next to equally crazed-sounding porno songs in the, um, evocatively titled "Butter-Bust Jerky" and "Motormount," the latter of which takes cars-and-sex metaphors to graphic new heights (or depths). However, the band changes things up often enough to prevent monotony; the title track is a slow, head-pounding anthem, while the metal paean "Free as the Wind" and the groupie tribute "Hard Times -- Fast Ladies" strike a controlled balance between velocity and accessibility. As with
Metal on Metal, the weakest moments come when the band tries to go midtempo and melodic, such as the
Dave Allison-sung "Never Deceive Me." Still,
Reiner's performance elevates even the occasional lesser material, making the whole feel a bit more consistent than its predecessor. Although
Metal on Metal is the more historically important release,
Anvil aficionados often rate
Forged in Fire as the slightly better of the two simply by virtue of sheer musicality. This would be
Anvil's last hurrah as heavy metal torchbearers; in 1983 alone,
Def Leppard and
Quiet Riot kicked off metal's conquest of the pop charts, while debut albums from
Metallica and
Slayer obliterated all standards of extremity in the metal underground. In the coming years, those two increasingly divergent paths left scant middle ground for straight-ahead metal practitioners like
Anvil, and by the time the band recovered its creative and professional momentum, it was too late. ~ Steve Huey