Customer Reviews

Black Sabbath: Doom Let Loose: An Illustrated History

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In another "unique" style of presentation, Martin Popoff has taken a critical and enjoyable look at a hard rock/heavy metal group. In his latest book, Black Sabbath: Doom Let Loose, Popoff has given the reader a clear and logical presentation of the band in a straight-forward and enjoyable style. As a signature of all of his books, Popoff adds unique stories from the band members and recreates the time periods of each album with critical reviews and recollections of the band members to give the reader a feel of the history of the band and how the music related.

The quality of the paper, the presentation of the material, the unique photos and the enlightened prose has made this a high quality book and a more than enjoyable read. There are fantastic photos of unique bits and pieces of memorabilia from Black Sabbath archives.

What I personally appreciate is how Popoff shows all incantations and line-ups of Black Sabbath. His volume is one of the band, not simply the Ozzy years--and all have equal weight in his eyes and are worthy of consideration by the hard rock/metal fan. Popoff's thorough look at the Gillian years, as an example, give a comprehensive look at how the band truly could have thrived under Ian Gillian's voice; but with the Deep Purple being reformed, such things could not be.

I highly recommend this book to more than the Black Sabbath fan--although the Black Sabbath fan will undoubtedly love this book. Doom Let Loose is a book for anyone who enjoys rock music; especially hard rock and heavy metal. I would also recommend Popoff's UFO book Shoot Out The Lights, his Blue Oyster Cult book Secrets Revealed, his Rush book Contents Under Pressure, and any of his guides to Heavy Metal.

The latest book from Martin Popoff covers every era of Black Sabbath from Ozzy to Tony Martin. There are plenty of entertaining stories and each album is explored. This is definitely the highest quality book that Martin has put out. The quality of the paper is very good and there are plenty of excellent pictures of current and former band members as well as pictures of Sabbath memorabilia. If you are a fan of one or all of the eras of Black Sabbath you should get this book!

Martin Popoff knows his hard rock and heavy metal and this book is excellent. He goes into detail about every lp ever released and goes into depth about the songwriting at the time the songs were written. Tony Iommi's riffs are legendary and so are the details about the history of Black Sabbath in this book. This is a must read for any Black Sabbath or hard rock fan, it has everything, from Ozzy to Tony Martin from Dio to The late Ray Gillian to the legendary Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillian.
This book is the best Black Sabbath book out there bar none and Martin Popoff did a wonderful job. Buy this book.

This is an entertaining, high quality Black Sabbath book. The chapters are set up in order of the albums and include: Black Sabbath, Paranoid, Master of Reality, Vol 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Sabotage, Technical Ecstasy, Never Say Die, Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules, Live Evil, Born Again, Seventh Star, The Eternal Idol, Headless Cross, Tyr, Dehumanizer, Cross Purposes, Forbidden, Reunion. The pages are thick and glossy and contain color photos of band members, album covers, posters, rare items, etc. Most of the text is from interviews, which makes it very entertaining to read. It's as if you're getting the information straight from the band members themselves, rather than the author. Overall the writing is very easy to follow, but later chapters do get a bit confusing. Probably that is due to the band line-up changing so much, though, rather than the fault of the author. I did notice a couple editing mistakes: 1. The chapter on "The Eternal Idol" (pg 232) starts off mid-sentence. 2. The "Dehumanizer" album is missing from the discography. I found it helpful to look to the discography to keep track of all the band line-up changes. I was only familiar with Ozzy-era Sabbath, and had no idea how many guys had played in the band over the years. It was like a revolving door! Solo careers of the original members are referred to once in a while in the text, but mostly this book focuses on the context surrounding each Black Sabbath album (for a lot of them Tony Iommi was the only original member). Overall this was an excellent book, very interesting and informative.

Is this the best book on Sabbath out there? I can't say, because I haven't read any others. However, after reading this there really isn't a need to look anywhere else.
It's all here: The early days as the jazz/blues group Earth, the adoption of the name Black Sabbath, the secret behind Iommi's unique style, where Ozzy got his tattoos, the break-up, the reunion, hundreds of pictures, a full discography, and a track by track review of every album in the Sabbath catalogue.
Popoff doesn't skip over the post-Ozzy era either. The Dio, Gillan, and Martin years are all covered in depth. Yet, what I love most is that the author doesn't come across as a protentious snob. This is a book by a fan for a fan, and it's refreshing to have it delivered from that perspective.
The only downside is that the book ends in 1999 during the Sabbath Reunion Tour with Ozzy. Quite a bit has happened since then; it would be nice to have a revised edition covering the Dio reunion, the tours under the moniker Heaven and Hell, as well as the realease and review of thier new album The Devil You Know. Perhaps Popoff has that in the works? Still this is a great book for any fan of rock, and I doubt there is a more comprehensive career spanning book available.

This book is one of the more complete publications out there right now on Sabbath. If you're new to the band this would be a great introduction. It covers the band from the very first album all the way up to the reunion tour. It's written in an album to album format which serves as a nice timeline for the band. As it's title suggests it also has a lot of great pictures not only of band members but vintage records, tapes and memorabilia as well. I really enjoyed this book!

I can't say enough good things about this book. If you like Black Sabbath, buy this book. As mentioned by the other reviewers, it covers all eras of Sabbath, each and every singer and drummer and bass player. It is as complete a history of the band, as well as the storys behind the songs. I throughly enjoyed it, and highly recommend it.

This is a great book of the Sabbath legacy. From humble beginnings to the god fathers of metal and when I saw that I mean all members....Iommi, Geezer, Bill, OZ, DIO, Gillan, Martin, Appice. If you want a very cool book, lots of great concert photos and great info and this amazing band this is for you.

This is a great book from the pen of Martin Popoff, His unique style and content flow from cover to cover.
Having read all available books on the Subject Black Sabbath, I do have to say that I really enjoyed this one.

That said, I would go further to say that there are some excellent books available on the subject matter, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath; by Gary Sharpe-Young.

Also; I hasten to add, the excellent Road-crew memoirs 'How Black Was Our Sabbath; An unauthorised view from the crew' really sticks out (5 stars from me).

Very informative book. This makes me want to read everything Martin Popoff has written. It is done in a very easy to read style that is informative and enjoyable. The book gives an historical account of every Sabbath album and song. Well done!