{"id":104573,"date":"2025-03-07T00:00:06","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T00:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=104573"},"modified":"2025-03-12T12:53:26","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T12:53:26","slug":"album-review-dragon-skull-chaos-fire-vengeance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-dragon-skull-chaos-fire-vengeance\/","title":{"rendered":"DRAGON SKULL – Chaos Fire Vengeance (2025) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

DRAGON SKULL
Chaos Fire Vengeance<\/strong><\/span>
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\nEat Metal (2025)<\/span>
Rating: 7\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Just to make sure you are still listening, Greece unleashes another slice of traditional heavy metal in the form of Dragon Skull. This combo from Athens did more than okay in 2022 by releasing a self-titled EP, and Chaos Fire Vengeance<\/em> should go some way for the band cementing themselves into the Greek metal roster.<\/p>\n

Just like the EP, Chaos Fire Vengeance<\/em> bristles with a Manowar style of muscularity \u2013 even the cover art reminds me of metal\u2019s most metal and loudest of men! Vocalist Aris Labos proudly pumps out emphatic tales which only the gods of air, fire, water and steel could fully understand. Indeed, as \u2018Brethren\u2019 rings out across the valleys one is prompted to climb the nearest mountain (or housing estate pub) and hold aloft a mighty sword, flapping flag or bicycle chain and croon to the heavens.<\/p>\n

When Dragon Skull rock, they rock hard. Panos Vlachopoulos and Chris Brintzikis don\u2019t use guitars, instead they fell trees, warriors and the occasional moose with their mighty arms, and with each swoop a cacophony of metallic fury is unleashed, in turn prompting George Voudouris to thump his bass and Teo Stamatiadis to bash his skins with mammoth tusks. There comes a time in every heavy metal fan\u2019s life that pure metal is required, even if it has a tendency to sizzle due to the cheesy crushing. Dragon Skull is the band you need if you\u2019re fed up with swampy death metal, progressive rock doodling and generic thrash.<\/p>\n

There are some fine contrasts here; \u2018Dragon Riders\u2019 is the archetypal power metal gleam fused together by dust-stirring gallops and Teutonic glazing, but on the other hand the aptly named \u2018Skull Crusher\u2019 is the groove where I so desperately want Dragon Skull to remain. This is pounding lead weight heavy metal that drops bombs in every department, churning from its very core as all instruments combine to form a formidable trudging juggernaut which leaves you hoping that every track on offer is like this.<\/p>\n

Sadly, \u2018Skull Crusher\u2019 stands alone as Dragon Skull tends to persist with more cheery medieval styled dynamics, namely on \u2018Skeleton Hand\u2019. Even so, this is far from being a typical power metal outing. \u2018Shield Maiden\u2019 is bombastic and thrashy, \u2018War Drums\u2019 steadily pulverising and \u2018Blood And Souls\u2019 hasty and symphonic. Sure, there are segments dotted throughout that I find all too cheesy, but there is enough meat, potatoes and poleaxing to last until dinner time.<\/p>\n

If Dragon Skull veered towards a \u2018Skull Crusher\u2019 type dynamic for most of their compositions then they would be quite the force, but for now this debut album will suffice as a further reminder that Greece is the place if you want to speak of gods, warriors and metal.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DRAGON SKULLChaos Fire Vengeance Eat Metal (2025)Rating: 7\/10 Just to make sure you are still listening, Greece unleashes another slice of traditional heavy metal in the form of Dragon Skull. This combo from Athens did more than okay in 2022 by releasing a self-titled EP, and Chaos Fire Vengeance should go some way for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5875],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-dragon-skull"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104574,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104573\/revisions\/104574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}