San Francisco group Sleepbomb have released their new album ‘Songs in the Key of Conan’ via koolarrow records.

The album is an alternate score for John Milius’ 1982 film ‘Conan the Barbarian’, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sleepbomb have been developing music for the film for more than a decade, first as a live score and now as a studio album.

The band describe the record as the result of an eleven-year process. What began as a loose, improvised live score slowly became a fully written set of music, built around heavy percussion, synths, guitars and the band’s mix of doom, drone, post-rock and cinematic sound.

Sleepbomb have been active since 2003 and are known for creating original scores for existing films. Their past projects include music for ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ and ‘Night of the Living Dead’. In 2023, they joined koolarrow records and Consouling Sounds for the release of ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’, followed by ‘The Sleeping Dead’ in 2025.

‘Songs in the Key of Conan’ was recorded at Earhammer Studios in summer 2024 with Greg Wilkinson, who also mixed and mastered the album. The core lineup features Charlie Hernandez on guitars, Robert Johnson on drums and percussion, and Tim Gotch on bass, synths and sound design. The record also includes Claire Hamard on vocals, keyboards, clarinet and percussion, with K.R. Morrison on percussion and Matt Pankuch on horns.

The album had a long path to completion, with delays caused by the pandemic, lineup changes, licensing issues around live screenings and internal scheduling. According to the band, once mixing finally resumed in late 2025, the record came together smoothly.

<a href="https://sleepbomb.bandcamp.com/album/songs-in-the-key-of-conan">Songs in the Key of Conan by Sleepbomb</a>

Asked about the album, the band said: “‘Songs in the Key of Conan’ is the culmination of a complicated eleven-year journey for Sleepbomb. Originally conceived as the next step in our evolution beyond improvised silent film scores, the choice of John Milius’ 1982 classic Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle ‘Conan the Barbarian’ was inspired.

“Over the course of the first five years, our music for ‘Conan the Barbarian’ developed from two hours of messy improvisation into a taut, fully written original score, full of driving percussion, soaring synths and dynamic guitars. During the same period, we also evolved from a loose ensemble playing for fun in beer gardens several times a year to a fixed lineup selling out movie theaters across the San Francisco Bay Area. ‘Conan’ is, in many ways, Sleepbomb’s signature score.

“Likely, without Covid, this record would have come out in 2021 and sounded very different given the pre-pandemic lineup of Sleepbomb. This can be heard on the 2020 record ‘The Path of Pins’, which includes several tracks from the ‘Conan’ score recorded in 2019. Covid would be the first of several wrenches thrown into the Sleepbomb gears regarding ‘Conan’, and post-pandemic the band was reduced to the core trio of Charlie, Rob and Tim.

“With the addition of Claire Hamard in 2022, the intent was to record ‘Conan’ after ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ release. However, the next wrench was thrown when we discovered that Universal Distribution was ‘no longer able to license the film for performance with a live score’, original or otherwise. No explanation was given, and this situation persists today, currently preventing us from performing the score live to the film in theaters. Pivoting to ‘Night of the Living Dead’ as the next project seemed like a better path at the time, and ‘Conan’ would not be revisited for over a year.

“Prompted by the potential expiration of Claire’s US visa, we finally tracked ‘Conan’ at Earhammer Studios in the summer of 2024. Working with Greg Wilkinson for the third time, the band immediately fell into a comfortable routine with the process. They were joined in the studio by long-time ‘Conan the Barbarian’ live collaborators Matt Pankuch on horns and K.R. Morrison on percussion. Tracking was completed in around a week with few difficulties.

“Wrench number three was largely self-inflicted. The intent was to mix ‘Conan’ in late 2024, but with the imminent release of ‘The Sleeping Dead’ LP in January 2025, it was set aside until the fall of 2025 for a variety of reasons, including the amicable departure of Claire from the band.

“Once the work finally began, the mix progressed quite smoothly. Greg spent several days wrangling the extensive number of drum tracks and then, with his already significant experience working with Sleepbomb, he developed preliminary mixes. Upon review by the band and Claire, the results were quite satisfactory. After some minor edits and balancing, the long journey of ‘Songs in the Key of Conan’ was finally headed to mastering.”

Headline photo: Lisa Gotch

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