Every battle-hardened warrior deserves their own theme song, and every epic adventure needs its own soundtrack. Alex Marshall, author of the genre-busting A CROWN FOR COLD SILVER, has composed the perfect accompaniment for Cold Zosia and her five fearless villains for your ears with the epic-est of epic fantasy playlists.
Track 1
Lou Reed – Perfect Day
‘I love a good soundtrack, and the best of them flow alongside the narrative but also enrich it, either through deepening the sensations or contrasting them. With that in mind, I elected to open the playlist with this song because the novel begins on just such a halcyon afternoon, with shadows lengthening as Lou croons, “You’re going to reap just what you sow…”’
Track 2
Wolves In The Throne Room – Thuja Magus Imperium
‘It was hard to narrow it down to just one track from these titans of Olympia, but the progression from Jessika Kenney’s haunting intonations to the all-out assault that follows made this song the obvious choice.’
Track 3
Tengger Cavalry – War Horse
‘I chose this Mongolian folk metal track in part for its high energy that kept me writing, but also for the melancholic finale.’
Track 4
Ides of Gemini – Resurrectionists
‘I estimate I played Ides of Gemini’s Constantinople a hundred times while working on the novel, and this track in particular still gives me gooseflesh.’
Track 5
Astarte – Princess Of The Dawn
‘Just after I completed the final revision of the novel I received word that Tristessa, the co-founder and only constant member of Astarte, had died. It was a dark day for metal, for all music, for she was truly a pioneer, and this cover of an Accept classic showcases but a small part of her talent, while also having resonance with the text.’
Track 6
Earth – The Corascene Dog
‘Taking any song in isolation from an Earth album only gives you a taste of the intended effect, but I think this track does well, and encapsulates the lumbering yet inexorable doom that both precedes and awaits the protagonists.’
Track 7
Eluveitie – Bloodstained Ground
‘I originally intended to fill this slot with Ensiferum or Amon Amarth, as I listened to a good deal of both of them while writing the action sequences, but this furious track by Swiss outfit Eluveitie ended up being the perfect mix of folk flourishes and death metal growls.’
Track 8
Ghost B.C. – Ritual
‘Beneath the pageantry and the pomp, Ghost’s protean line-up delivers exactly the sort-of throwback sound I love, this track in particular.’
Track 9
Chthonic – Oceanquake
‘Bands don’t come much more badass than Chthonic—founder and activist Freddie Lim is a former Chairman of Amnesty International Taiwan — and this song lines up both tonally and thematically with certain elements of the novel.’
Track 10
Old Man’s Child – Demoniaca Possession
‘A classic black metal ballad, selected because I’ve been listening to it on a regular basis ever since it first dropped, and it was part of the background music of A Crown for Cold Silver even before I knew what shape the book would take.’
Track 11
Year Of The Goat – I’ll Die for You
‘Yes, I put two proggy Swedish occult bands on here. Yet if I had needed to cut one I would have taken off Ghost before Year of the Goat, because this track from Angel’s Necropolis was playing as several key elements to the novel coalesced in my head.’
Track 12
Crackdust – Return of the Gods
I wanted this soundtrack to climax with thematically-relevant death metal that had helped power me through the book, and this track from some of Botswana’s premiere headbangers was the winner by a wide margin.
Track 13
Florence + The Machine – Seven Devils
‘I wanted something very specific for the denouement, and this atmospheric track is it—the confluence of perfect music, perfect vocals, and perfect lyrics that could be the theme song for a particular heroine . . .’
A CROWN FOR COLD SILVER is available now. Read the first seven chapters: www.crimsonempire.net