Legal at Last is the 18th Studio album from Canadian metal band, Anvil, and everything here is as I expected.

Let’s start with the artwork… It’s bad.  Not in that way that it comes back around to become good.  It’s just flat out bad.  It features an Angel, standing on a bank of clouds, sucking bong hits from an Anvil shaped bong… Terrible!

There are some pretty decent riffs scattered throughout the album, but all are very familiar.  Anvil seems to be either recycling somebody else’s riffs, or their own most of the time.

There are some pretty good solos, but it’s not enough to rescue the entire thing.

The lyrics are repetitive and often silly (see Nabbed in Nebraska), but Lips does sound pretty good most of the time.

I’m actually disappointed that I don’t like this album, because Anvil are perennial underdogs, and you always want to see the underdog do well.  And Anvil do have some killer tunes among their discography.  Sadly nothing from this record will make that cut…

If I’m being honest, an album like this begs the question; if it wasn’t for the Anvil: The Story of Anvil movie, would anybody know this bands name?

4/10

Shayne McGowan.