20080127

Whip your SWORD out...

...since they did on Friday's at the new LOLA's in Fort Worth. It's run by all the same great people who ran the Wreck Room. Here are two new songs, the first is off the upcoming_Gods of the Earth_ (Kemado Records).

"LORDS"


EXCLUSIVE/UNRELEASED TRACK: "The Frost Giant's Daughter"

from Wikipedia:
"The Frost-Giant's Daughter" is, arguably, the earliest chronological story by Robert E. Howard in terms of Conan's life. The brief tale is set somewhere in frozen Nordheim, geographically situated north of Conan's homeland, Cimmeria. Conan is depicted by Howard as a youthful Cimmerian mercenary traveling among the golden-haired Aesir in a war party.
Shortly before the story begins, a hand-to-hand battle has occurred on an icy plain. Eighty men ("four score") have perished in bloody combat, and Conan alone survives the battlefield where Wulfhere's Aesir "reavers" fought the Vanir "wolves" of Bragi, a Vanir chieftain. Thus, the story opens.
Following this fierce battle against the red-haired Vanir, Conan the Cimmerian, lying exhausted on the corpse-strewn battlefield, is visited by a beautiful, condescending and semi-nude woman identifying herself as "Atali." Upon her bodice, she wears a transparent veil: a wisp of gossamer that was not spun by human distaff. The mere sight of her strange nakedness kindles Conan's lust and, when she repeatedly taunts him, he madly chases her for miles across the snows with the intent of raping her.
Mocking him with each step, Atali leads Conan into an ambush. Undaunted by the snare, Conan slays her two hulking brothers, the Frost-Giants, and then captures her in his arms, only to have her call upon her father, Ymir, to save her. Before Conan is able to ravage her, Atali disappears in a stroke of lightning that seemingly transforms the landscape and renders Conan unconscious.
Later, when his Aesir comrades arrive, Conan believes he must have dreamed the bizarre encounter until he finds he is still grasping the translucent veil that served as the sole garment of the Frost-Giant's daughter.
The utilization of poetic descriptions throughout this tale is quite strong, and on par with Howard's "Queen of the Black Coast." However, the narrative is often criticized by Howard scholars for not having the more detailed plotting of his superior Conan stories such as "The Black Stranger." Largely, this is because Howard was aiming for a mythological feel, something to which the story is eminently suited.