The resulting quarter of an hour of music by Poledouris remained a difficult item to obtain on album for quite a while. A limited album from Super Tracks, the quickly-defunct soundtrack specialty label, was released in 2000 and is devoted to only this Conan show. It includes two tracks: most of the music alone and a shorter selection of material with the original dialogue from the live action on stage. The suite which comprises the second track on this album had previously appeared on a few compilation bootlegs of Poledouris' work, some of which selling for hundreds of dollars at online auction houses. The music itself is a viable extension of Conan the Barbarian but more closely resembles parts of Conan the Destroyer. While neither the title nor love themes from the prior motion picture score are directly translated into the show for lengthy statements, bits and pieces do appear in mutations throughout. For instance, a bar of the title theme from Conan the Barbarian is inserted at 6:50 and the finale in the second, score-only track, and the pulsating rhythm of Crom occurs at 8:30 in the same track. Avid fans of Poledouris and the Conan franchise will recognize many of the composer's woodwind and brass styles carrying over from the film as well. A strong presence of timpani and a few new thematic ideas keep the live-action score distinct enough to enjoy apart from Conan the Barbarian (unlike the "Back to the Future: The Ride" score, for which Alan Silvestri just took his original film themes and pieced them together into a suite for the ride). In fact, a lovely new theme of romance is introduced at about 4:20 into the score-only track that translates into a couple of extremely attractive performances throughout the piece. The evil dragon receives an appropriately hypnotic theme heard at 2:30 and 5:10 into the same track. The primary new uplifting theme for Conan would be reprised in full for a couple of minutes near the climax of Conan the Destroyer. In general, the score is easily accessible, with only the wildly shrill scoring for the slaying of the dragon at the end providing a dissonant weakness in its musical content.

Taken from analog originals for digital mastering onto the 2000 Super Tracks CD, the recording does feature some tinny sound all around (not abnormal for a 1983 recording). The first track features select portions of the dialogue and music together, while the second one includes only the expanded score of over 16 minutes by itself. The digital transfer has caused a few notes of interest for those running their audio through larger stereo systems. On a smaller setup, the CD sounds much more uniform, but audiophiles will notice that the music is of slightly poorer quality on the track with the dialogue, a greater amount of treble hiss present throughout. Making this artifact more apparent is the comparatively booming, superior quality of the dialogue. On the whole, however, the album is a grand addition to the collection of any Poledouris collector. It's like traveling back in time to the early 1980's and living in the age of Conan mania all over again, with a fresh, obscure Poledouris score to enjoy. In 2011, when the City of Prague Philharmonic re-recorded the complete score for Conan the Destroyer for release by Prometheus Records, producer James Fitzpatrick opted to also record the entirety of "The Adventures of Conan: A Sword and Sorcery Spectacular" (without dialogue). Expanding the music available and dividing it into palatable cues, this re-recording includes full choir and really excels in the massive choral passages within "The Dragon/Mordor's Death" (speaking of Mordor, parts of this cue do resemble Howard Shore's The Lord of the Rings classics in intensity). The allusions to the motifs of Conan the Barbarian are more pronounced in "The Flight" here as well. Overall, it's an extra bonus on the re-recorded Conan the Destroyer set that will, for some, be the highlight. It's hard not to keep coming back to the dialogue version on the 2000 CD, however, with a rumbling, majestic narrator and wildly animated and equally deep vocal performance by the villain, both of whom will be certain to awaken your neighbors at any hour of the night. The death screams of the villain in particular are the kind of material that any sound effects collector will desire. The man portraying Conan definitely needed to work on his Austrian accent, though.  ****   @Amazon.com: CD or Download