The January 21 official release date for Dismal Hollow, the new album by Virginia’s King Giant is fast-approaching, and we’re teaming up with the band to bring one lucky NCS reader a special prize package: either a CD or the color-vinyl LP of Dismal Hollow (whichever the winner chooses), signed by the band — plus any one of the band shirts to be found at their Big Cartel site as long as the winner’s size is available (and if not, winner’s choice of one of the hats).
We’re thrilled to help promote interest in Dismal Hollow, because this album is so damn good that it knocked us flat — stretched out on the ground, eyes rolled back in our heads, and drool coming out our mouths. To quote BadWolf’s review (posted here), “prepare yourselves for the first excellent album of 2012, a slow cruise through doom country.”
And to quote myself from yesterday’s post on the excellent video for “Appomattox”: “It’s simply one of the new year’s first great albums — a dark, raw, smoke-filled crusher of Southern doom that rocks hard and is also one of the heaviest beasts you’ll hear in 2012. Massive, hook-filled riffs link up with thundering rhythms, head-spinning guitar solo’s, and Dave Hammerly’s incredible vocals to produce one memorable song after another.”
So what do you have to do to put yourself in the running for this prize? Find out after the jump . . .
We could have done something easy and brainless like drawing names out of a hat. But although “easy and brainless” is one of my personal mottos, that didn’t seem like the kind of contest that would do justice to Dismal Hollow. So this contest will involve a bit of thinking and creativity.
Drawing on the sense of violent historical conflict that underpins the first track released from the album — “Appomattox” — we came up with this question (actually, BadWolf came up with it): Tell us what famous battle in history deserves a metal song immortalizing it and why? Leave your ingenious answers in the Comments or e-mail them to me at this address: islander@nocleansinging.com
King Giant will pick a winner from among the answers and we’ll announce the lucky winner in a subsequent post.
So get yourselves in a bloody-minded mood and show us what you got!
20 Responses to “AN NCS-SPONSORED KING GIANT CONTEST”
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The Betrayal of Constantinople of 1204, when the crusaders where tasked with recapturing the holy land, they instead out of greed and religious hostility sacked what was one of the greatest city in the world; Constantinople. It highlights well a great number of disturbing things about human weakness, from greed, the mind warping nature of religion, low morale can be a destructive force, politics and religion were nothing but means of control (resulted in the christian schism), and that humanity fails to learn from tragic conclusions.
It has all the elements worthy of a song, I mean how many other singular events in the world born of mans weakness have been so far reaching and so destructive.
This comment has been SOPA’d. Crap.
???
The massacre at Wounded Knee. The oppressed Sioux Native Americans had been rallying under the call of the Great Ghost Dance for years. The U.S., feeling threatened, sent out a force of soldiers to deal with a gathering of tribes. With overwhelming numbers and numerous Gatling Guns trained on the gathering of Natives, the U.S. opened fire, slaughtering approximately 300 Natives to the 25 soldiers lost.
Third Siege of Nagashima, 1574
After being humiliated over the course of three years to take Nagashima from rebels and the deaths of two of his brothers by their hands, Oda Nobunaga – one of the most notorious and brutal warlords of Japan’s Sengoku civil war period – waged a third and final siege on the mountain fortresses. This time, he drove the rebels back into their fortress by attacking from the sea and the land in a multi-pronged strike. He suffered numerous loses, but he had managed to cut them off from the outside world. Then, he constructed a massive wall encircling the entire complex. He trapped all 20,000 rebels – including women, children, and the elderly – inside and set the entire thing ablaze while his army waited outside to make sure no one fled. Not a single person escaped the fire.
The story? Vengeance. Pure, simple, unadulterated vengeance and brutality.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagashima (for when Wikipedia comes back up)
The Battle of Cameron
The French Foreign Legion was a military unit put together by France made out of mercenaries, foreigners and general scumbags. For some reason, Emperor Napoleon III sent the Legion to Mexico. 3 officers and 62 enlisted men (yes, a total of 65 men) stopped at Palo Verde for a rest after marching 15 miles. Unfortunately for them, there just happened to be 2000 Mexican troops nearby. The Legion withdrew to the nearby town of Cameron, while holding off multiple cavalry charges, and took cover in a little inn in the center of town. The Mexican commander, being a man who could count, knew the Legion was outnumbered by far, and told them to surrender. Danjou, the Legion’s Captaine responded with “We have munitions. We will not surrender” The Legion begin to fortify their position and the Mexican’s attacked.
The legionnaires, by this point, hadn’t had any food or water for over 24 hours, and they were exhausted from marching. There were only 60 of them against 2000 Mexicans. They stood their ground, using everything they could. Things looked grim, men were dying, the inn had caught fire, but Danjou shouted “The Legion diesl it does not surrender!”
A sniper round caught Danjou in the chest and killed him, but the remainin legionnaires fought even harder! After 11 hours of battle, only 5 exhausted Legion men remained with no ammunition left. Did they surrender? No. They fixed bayonetes to their guns and charged, like true badasses, right at the Mexicans! Three were killed and the other two wounded. The Mexican commander approached the two wounded men and demanded their surrender. The men looked the Mexican commander right in the eye and demanded immediate safe passage home, along with their wounded, their fallen captain, their weapons, and their regimental flag. The Mexican commander said “What can I do with such men? No, these are not men, they are devils.” He granted their request and the Legion withdrew from the field.
60 Legion men against 2000 Mexicans. Nearly all the legionnaires were killed, but they took nearly 600 Mexican soldiers with them. A monument was erected at the spot of the battle, and to this very day, the Mexican army presents arms as a sign of respect whenever they march past it.
Bravery in the face of death and insurmountable odds, and never surrendering no matter how bad it may seem.
I vote this!
Obviously when Zach and Slater came to blows on SAVED BY THE BELL
This episode is up here because it has Zack and Slater duking it out in one of the worst choreographed fight scenes of all time. In this episode, Slater and Zack are both interested in the same girl and engage in a series of antics and pranks in order to ruin the others chances with the girl. But when Zack ruins Slaters date at the movies by having Screech dress up as an usher, the stage is set for one of the lamest and most hilarious trash talking scenes in television history.
Slater: Hey, Zack, last night at the movies you went too far!
Zack: (jokingly) I was just helping a mother get together with her son, what’s so wrong about that?
Slater: Wrecking my date with Joanna wasn’t funny.
Zack: Like it was funny wrecking my study date the night before?
Slater: Hey, you started it, man, making me look like a jerk at the Max!
Zack: Well that’s what you are.
Slater: What did you say?
Zack: You heard me. Get out of my face.
Slater: And what if I don’t, punk?
Zack: Then I’ll just have to make you, punk!
I like how in Saved by the Bell land, being called a ‘jerk’ is about the worst thing you can say to someone. Anyways, Zack and Slater proceed to have a fake looking fight that is broken up by Mr. Belding. Their feud rages on, and later on at the max, Zack and Slater pour fruit punch down each others shirt and pants as their rivalry continues. But when Mr. Belding tries to keep the peace, his wig (did I mention he was wearing a wig in this episode?) falls off. Everyone shares a hearty laugh and forgets why they were even fighting in the first place, and all is well at Bayside.
You’re definitely bringing your A-game here today bro.
This one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Dutch/Australian_Offensive
Because even the Queen things it was badass and gave Lieutenant Kroon (now a Captain) a Military William Order for it, the highest honor awarded in the Netherlands and the first one awarded in 54 years.
The Patriotic War of 1812 (aka the failed French invasion of Russia during the Napoleonic Wars).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Napoleons_retreat_from_moscow.jpg
Atmospheric black metal would perfectly encapsulate the setting where an army is on the verge of freezing to death. With some Russian/Baltic folk music overtones, just because it makes sense, and because it would be fucking awesome.
Hell, now I want to hear this song I’m imagining! I need to find some friends who play guitar and/or balalaika. And one who can do black metal vocals.
Hmmm . . . no black metal about the Napoleonic invasion of Russia comes to mind. There’s some good BM out there about the eastern front during WWII. E.g., music from Eastern Front and Marduk, which popped into my head first:
https://www.nocleansinging.com/2011/03/06/still-more-diversionary-tactics/
https://www.nocleansinging.com/2011/05/13/short-but-sweet-marduk/
How about my battle with explosive diarrhea in Ecuador. Oh, my god, the many sheets that were the casualties of that war…peace my thin and wafting brethren.
Seriously though…I have no fucking clue. I’m pretty sure half of cracked.com’s articles answer this question satisfactorily, so I’ll just be stereotypical and suggest the battle of Shiroyama. Yah, the one that they portrayed” in the Last Samurai. God, that movie makes me wanna hate fuck Tom Cruise to death worse than usual.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Shiroyama
Also, I should add that while the battle was pretty badass, I’m fucking glad they lost. Fuck you, aristocracy.
Yeah, a goddamned shame that Tom Cruise survived that battle and all the cool characters in the movie were wiped out.
It’s a shame he survived the first scene. Fuck, it’s a shame his dad didn’t pull out and fun on his mom’s tits. Asshole.
I’m gonna let my phone continue to spell cum as fun, cause it’s funny.
I like that your phone has a cum-fun personality. It’s fitting. Maybe you two were separated at birth.
Funny, yeah, but honestly I didn’t realize it was a mistake.
When you said “fun on his mom’s tits” I knew exactly what you meant, so I thought it was intentional.
The Battle at Dybbøls Mill (http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil:Dybboel-moelle.jpg) in 1864 off course. We lost so fucking badly that King Christian IX tried to make Denmark a vassal state of Germany 🙂
No srsly, I’ll get it when it released on a Bandcamp somewhere. Best of luck in the competition.
The Banana Massacre in 1928 in Cienaga, Colombia. It is not actually much of a battle, but I still think it is pretty metal, so here it goes:
The United Fruit Company had established itself in the Magdalena Department, hiring people to work in the plantations through contractors and making them work under subhuman conditions with little pay. But in November 12th, 1928, one of the syndicates in the region began a strike, demanding a better, weekly pay and the establishment of hospitals to help them have better living conditions and protection against the tropical diseases; the company rejected the negotiation, and while the strike began growing bigger because of the support of the local folk, the government issued a state of siege in the zone because of public disturbance, the night of December 5th.
That same night, the General Carlos Cortes Vargas, initially sent as military chief, decreed that any congregation of more that three individuals had to be separated, threatening to shoot if necessary. As the strikers had all concentrated in Cienaga, Vargas and 300 soldiers went forth and asked for the separation of the crowd, giving them five minutes to go away. The troops had positioned themselves with machine guns on the lower rooftops of the city, and cornered the strikers in the main square, and after the five minutes passed, they opened fire against a crowd that even Vargas admitted to be defenceless. The number of casualties was never revealed (Vargas admitted only nine casualties, the same number of demands the strikers were making), but it ranges from the nine Vargas admited to more than a thousand, as a letter of the US Embassy states in a letter sent to the secretary of state.
Only few survived, and this event is considered a “baptism of fire” for the working class in Colombian history , all done because of the fear Vargas – and the government- had of communism. This event was prelude to the murder of populist Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, the Bogotazo (a series of revolts caused by the death of Gaitan) and the subsequent 10-year period of civil war between Liberals and Conservatives known as “La Violencia”(The Violence).
What a tragic story. One of so many horrors perpetrated by the United Fruit Company in South America. Thank you for suggesting this.