The “Story of Anvil”
sure was a popular one a few years ago in the wake of a documentary released
about the Toronto metal bands career. If you haven’t seen it, here is all you
have to know; it depicted yet another of the countless bands who set out to be
the next big thing but never became a Metallica
or Judas Priest or even a Saxon or Accept. There was, however a point in the early 80’s when it
appeared they might be. Their second album Metal
on Metal was praised by metal fans and metal musicians alike for its
proto-thrash sound, but due to mainly management botcheries the band just
became irrelevant.
The late 80’s/early 90’s “grunge” surge from Seattle was definitely a unique moment in the
history of new music. It’s always debated who are true grunge bands and who just
kind of got the title because they made similar sounding music at the time.
Bands like Stone Temple Pilots for
instance, happened to have been making heavy not-quite-heavy metal music in the
early/mid 90’s so they kind of got thrown in to the mix, but it’s bands like Soundgarden and of course Nirvana who truly carried the torch as “grunge”
musicians through and through. Pearl Jam
has always been referred to as grunge because they are from Seattle and were
making popular music around the same time, but I disagree that they are “grunge”
and more just early since of alternative rock.
Ireland has been the home of a few legends in rock music. In
particular it was the birth country of the late hard rock turned blues guitar
legend Gary Moore as well as the
pride and joy or Dublin himself, the late great Phil Lynott, main man of hard rock giants Thin Lizzy. Even though it has been a while since these two men
graced us with their songs, it has made the country of Ireland a very credible
location to breed great rock talent.
With summer finally starting up to be in full swing, it has
put me in the mood to do something a little different; review a Beach Boys album. The mood just caught
me and I don’t see why not.
