RSS Feed


DRAGON SKULL
Chaos 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 band cementing themselves into the Greek metal roster.

Just like the EP, Chaos Fire Vengeance bristles with a Manowar style of muscularity – even the cover art reminds me of metal’s 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 ‘Brethren’ 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.

When Dragon Skull rock, they rock hard. Panos Vlachopoulos and Chris Brintzikis don’t 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’s 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’re fed up with swampy death metal, progressive rock doodling and generic thrash.

There are some fine contrasts here; ‘Dragon Riders’ is the archetypal power metal gleam fused together by dust-stirring gallops and Teutonic glazing, but on the other hand the aptly named ‘Skull Crusher’ 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.

Sadly, ‘Skull Crusher’ stands alone as Dragon Skull tends to persist with more cheery medieval styled dynamics, namely on ‘Skeleton Hand’. Even so, this is far from being a typical power metal outing. ‘Shield Maiden’ is bombastic and thrashy, ‘War Drums’ steadily pulverising and ‘Blood And Souls’ 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.

If Dragon Skull veered towards a ‘Skull Crusher’ 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.

Neil Arnold

<< Back to Album & EP Reviews



Related Posts via Categories
Share