Book Review: Martin Popoff's Ye Olde Metal: 1973 to 1975

MARTIN POPOFF
Ye Olde Metal: 1973 To 1975
(Power Chord Press)

Yeah, yeah, all of you cretins and hopheads that read my previous review of rock critic Martin Popoff's funtastic book Ye Olde Metal: 1968 To 1972 should know the drill by now. Popoff is heavy metal's most intelligent voice; he's reviewed literally thousands of albums, blah, blah, blah. As the editor of, and a contributor to metal bible Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, Popoff has written about just about every hard rock hero and metalhead to blow across the tumbleweed wasteland over the past two decades or so.

Popoff has also penned scores of books - closing in on two dozen by my count - including the authoritative biographical tomes on pudstompers like Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and Ronnie James Dio, among many others. It's his latest project, however, that might well be Martin's most ambitious yet, even more "pie-in-the-sky" loony-tune than The Collectors Guide To Heavy Metal three-volume series that exhaustively reviews 30+ years of album releases and makes for great reading on the toilet. These books are essential for any collector obsessed with guitar-driven rock, obscure metal bands and rare heavy artifacts of a recorded nature.

Popoff's latest series is titled Ye Olde Metal, and each book is available only from the author as a private stock, limited-edition of 1,000 signed and numbered copies (www.martinpopoff.com). Each volume in the proposed multi-book series will cover a specific time period and, through interviews with the people that created them, will tell the story of a number of classic metal albums. The second book is now available, and the Reverend shouldn't have to hit each of you over the head with his trusty claw-hammer to convince you that Ye Olde Metal: 1973 To 1975 is a mandatory addition to your concrete-block-and-scrapwood bookshelves, wedged right in between Madonna's Sex and my own Rock Talk book.