Band Line Up 2012

has been on a rock 'n' roll journey for the past three decades, but it has
become a very public rocket ride into the musical and pop culture stratosphere
only recently.

And that's their dedication to their
music. Ever since the award-winning
documentary

Anvil! The Story of Anvil

propelled
the Canadian band from their respectable, hard-earned status as a band revered
by the likes of Metallica, Motorhead and Guns N' Roses, Anvil founding members,
vocalist/guitarist

Steve "Lips" Kudlow

and drummer

Robb Reiner

,
have made sure that one thing remains constant.

Rather than shy away from the publicity,
the attention and the casual fans that are a product of this rock doc, Anvil,
rounded out by bassist

Glenn Five

,
are embracing it. "We are going after it with a vengeance," Kudlow
declared. "That's how we think about life in general. Enjoy every minute,
like you are winning the Cup!" While most bands that have been around as
long as Anvil may be on their last legs, there's a renewed vim and vigor
surrounding Anvil. That type of renewal
is not common to a band with three decades of history, but Anvil have done the
necessary legwork work to allow their band to be one of the most relevant heavy
metal bands in existence, even as they enjoy a new and much-deserved measure of
success. It's as though they truly have arrived with

Juggernaut
of Justice,

their fourteenth studio album to be
released via The End Records on May 10th.

"I worked in a feverish way and with
a different attitude," Kudlow said about his approach to

Juggernaut.

"It
was, 'This has to be the best album we've ever done. It's a bigger world stage
that stepped things up, from the movie.' We were looking for that musical
justice."

Despite all eyeballs being on Anvil, the
band remains unassuming and business-as-usual, despite the hype. Even if the
film never happened, Anvil would still be still be doing Anvil. "It's still fun, F-U-N," Reiner
laughed. "Rock 'n' roll is the best religion in the world. That’s why we
still do it. Why stop?"

Since 2009, the band played almost every
major European festival, landed opening slots on two US and one Canadian

AC/DC shows that summer, one of which was
performed in front of 55,000 screaming fans at Giants Stadium. Anvil also
embarked on their first headline tour of America in 10 years, and headlined the
main stage of Germany's Wacken, performing in front of 80,000 rabid metalheads.
They ended up performing before 300,00 people that year. "We won the battle.
If it was a battle, we showed the world that we are a real band, good musicians
and the real deal," Reiner said, summing up the experience. "People
had curiosity, going, 'Are these guys any good?’ After the movie, they thought,
'How good are they?’ We won them over everywhere. We made tens of thousands of
new fans."

The band proves it has the goods with

Juggernaut
of Justice,

which was recorded at Dave Grohl's studio
in LA, as the Nirvana/Foo Fighters guru is a friend and fan. Producer

Bob
Marlette

(Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson) manned
the boards for an album that sounds like classic Anvil and is true-to-form.
Reiner even went as far as to call it the best in the band's 33-year history,
declaring that "Lips sounds 20 years younger and it's fresh, clean, beautiful
songs and playing that has the energy of 25-year-old kids."

He's not kidding. The album is forceful
enough to shift tectonic plates and generates a thrash attack that will have
heavy music fans banging their heads so furiously that they burst blood vessels
in their necks and purchase stock in Icy Hot.

Anvil credit Marlette for "capturing
the magic," which isn't simple to do. "You can't work at that,"
Reiner astutely pointed out. "It just happens. Either it is or it isn't.
The record reeks of that positivity and there is so much freshness saturating
it."

Juggernaut of Justice

cycles through many moods and tempos.

"Swing
Thing" is the band's ambitious metal-jazz track, while
"Fukeneh!" is an anthem that is concert hall ready.
"Paranormal" is what Reiner refers to as "the ballad,"
thanks to its heavy, soulful, Sabbathian vibe. "It's a powerful, evil song
and that energy is very new for Anvil," the drummer said. Speed metal
thrashers like "When Hell Breaks Loose" and "Running" also
live on

Juggernaut of Justice,

while
“New Orleans Voodoo" is, according to Reiner, "a downtime
pounder." Overall, Kudlow and Reiner are adamant that there is no doom 'n'
gloom present on

Juggernaut.

It's
heavy and positive, which isn't common in a lot of hard rock music.

Anvil have a lot to be positive about and
it shows. Kudlow admitted that he wrote lyrics and melodies and applied them to
the music in the studio, creating the music right there as he went. Instead of
being pre-determined, he composed on the spot, without hesitation. "Those
are the greatest moments you will capture, because of the discovery
process," he said. "When you do that with the vocals, you leave that
door open." Kudlow didn't care about starting from scratch and not being
locked into stuff he had never previously sung; this unconventional,
off-the-cuff approach infuses

Juggernaut

with
its genuine, uncompromised feel. Kudlow also played on guitars "that were
not comfortable for me," thanks to the extraordinarily thick strings he
used. "It hurt to play them and they made me play differently."
That’s another reason why Anvil continues to evolve: 30 years deep, they are
still trying new things, growing and expanding. It's this type of fearlessness
that will keep heads turning their way.

Kudlow has an interesting theory as to
why now is the right time for Anvil to reach this level of acknowledgement
after trudging it out for nearly three dozen years. "We got known from a
movie, not from our musical integrity in a certain sense," the singer
said. "In the vast sense, in the initial sense, it actually

was

our music because the guy who made the movie was a fan. For the most part,
people were introduced to the band from the movie. It was an incredible ride
the movie took us on. How did that affect our music and in a positive way? This
album is more connected to the movie than the movie connected to the album.
It's about not giving up and staying true to yourself."

That's why Anvil connected with the likes
of Lars Ulrich and Lemmy Kilmister and their film director and their throng of
diehard fans. But it's also why metal fans who have not yet been exposed to the
band will check them out and stick with the band for the long haul. Because
Anvil could very well have 30 more years ahead of them. Like Reiner said
earlier, you can't capture magic unless it's real. And Anvil is as real as it
gets.