Kyle's Book Review RIFF KILLS MAN BY MARTIN POPOFF

Book Review: Riff Kills Man

by Kyle Nonneman

[Note: this was composed in prison where proof-reading facilities are notoriously bad. Please don't hold that against the author. You can contact Kyle through the address listed at the end of this entry.]

Riff Kills Man is Martin Popoff's first book. Later on, Popoff would become to traditional hard rock,proto/ heavy metal what Metalion is to extreme metal. Popoff's later books provide the definitive analysis and exegesis of many of the old gods.

Riff Kills Man is an autistic spectrum-esque completionist collection of 1,942 record reviews self published as a book. This is no "Nurse With Wound List". A lot of this is heavily focused on the majors and a lot of coverage is given to staple brand name acts. The focus on the exoteric is obvious.

Popoff is an expert archivist and a dedicated open minded fanatic. But he's admittedly out of his depth and comfort zone when he attempts to review the few examples of extreme metal included in this book.

Appallingly giving Bathory's The Return,Morbid Tales and Pleasure To Kill lower ratings then Stryper.

His lack of knowledge of extreme metal is made glaringly obvious in the very broad and incorrect way he uses the term grindcore as a convenient pejorative catch-all term to broadly describe various extreme metal records that have little to do with grindcore.

Popoff, I think, included token early examples of extreme metal despite personal feelings and lack of context for completionist archival state. The bad reviews serve the purpose of adding to the cult infamy and inaccessibility of the extreme bands covered. 

The book was published in 1992 . So information on those extreme sub-genres was still somewhat underground and inaccessible. So you can overlook Popoff calling Bathory grindcore and Danzig brutal black metal. The lurid and creative prose use to hilariously roast Hawkwind is very accurate constructive criticism backed by Popoff's informed opinion. It's also hilarious and makes you want to seek them out regardless of the rating But the extreme metal reviews are mostly conjecture filtered through the perception bias of a dedicated old school metalhead.

But you'll find a lot of info on obscure Nwobh, traditional heavy metal and hard rock bands buried alongside unfiltered commentary of major label bullshit. He provides some great insight on how much the Black Album sucks for example if you didn't already know that....So you can overlook Popoff dismissing Gorguts Erosion Of Sanity as grindcore. When in fact it was a cult classic that attempted to move old school death metal away from its speed obsessed thrash roots into more atmospheric,technical and progressive directions. And focus instead on tracking down all the traditional obscurities you'll discover within the labyrinthian confines of this tome.

Popoff neglects to mention how Randy Rhodes improvised and slightly reworked Iommi's iconic riffs. And doesn't make any comparisons between Eno's original Baby's on Fire and Roth's cover. Let alone the iconic solo in Eno's version.

You can buy this off Amazon or direct from Power Chord Press.

Popoff's work is mostly self published.

Support the underground.

Kyle

You can write Kyle at: 

Kyle Nonneman
#16534211
Snake River Correctional Institution
777 Stanton Blvd
Ontario OR 97914-8335

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