#cirithungol — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

I did a hard thing today. I ignored a DM (image).

"This is my 🪓 There are many like it but this one is mine. My 🪓is my best friend, it is my life. I must wield it before I am struck down. I will"

@[email protected] #middleearth #orcs #CirithUngol

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Angry Metal Guy @[email protected] · 2025-12-17 · 12:25 UTC

Dragon Skull – Chaos Fire Vengeance [Things You Might Have Missed 2025]

By Baguette of Bodom

Greece is a surprising hotbed for power metal-adjacent sounds, providing recent gems such as Sunburst last year and Sacred Outcry’s 2023 masterpiece.1 Dragon Skull is a newcomer to these fields of glory, introducing their burly heavy/power style on their promising self-titled EP as recently as 2022. Now, three years later, they were finally ready to unleash their debut Chaos Fire Vengeance on the world. And oh my, what an entrance it is.

Dragon Skull know how to riff like hell and craft anthemic, cataclysmically heavy tunes. In addition to the fist-pumping Manowar feel the band is going for (“Brethren,” “Skull Crusher”), the songwriting is further guided by the spirit of German power metal, something like Brainstorm further reinforced with later Blind Guardian bombast (“Nampat,” “Blood and Souls”). But what makes the instrumentation incendiary is how guitarists Panos Wallach and Chris Brintzikis take influence from several directions at once. This guarantees plenty of variety through the album’s eight tracks, ranging from the dual-harmonized NWoBHM of “Brethren” to the melodeath/meloblack-informed tremolos on “Shield Maiden.” To top it all off, the pummeling war drums of Teo Stamatiadis and gargantuan vocals of Aris Labos lend maximum grit to an already muscular record.

Chaos Fire Vengeance offers a refreshing mixture of ’80s heavy metal and ’00s power metal. Slower, anthemic annihilation is counterpointed by thunderous fury, often during the same song (“Dragon Riders,” Shield Maiden”). The extra melodic death metal DNA brings with it a welcome burst of harsh vocals as well (“War Drums,” “Skeleton Hand”), and the way it all gels effortlessly is impressive. Despite the amount of various elements and influences in the album, the end result is deceivingly simple and effective. It makes Dragon Skull’s style stand out in a similar way Triumpher’s shtick does, but the increased mass and grit of Chaos Fire Vengeance improves the formula from good to face-melting. Though the first half of the album is already potent, the second half is where the band’s ambitions are fully realized. The hooks in “Nampat” and “Skeleton Hand” are immense, and the gargantuan epic “Blood and Souls” is a serious Song o’ the Year contender. I mean, how can you not love a song with Elric and Tanelorn-themed lyrical homages to Cirith Ungol and Blind Guardian?2

Dragon Skull is single-handedly carrying the power metal torch this year. Sure, it might be more heavy/power, but who’s counting? The songwriting is superbly anthemic, and the band knocked it out of the park on their first try in 42 brief minutes. I’ve had some trouble getting all my writing done late in the year for countless reasons, and this album in particular felt difficult to write deeper analysis for. But maybe it’s not necessary. After all, what is a TYMHM but a long-winded way to say “this album rocks, go check it out?” Sometimes it’s just better to keep things short and simple, and all Chaos Fire Vengeance needs is a damn strong barrage of eight massive tunes. Better yet, it’s a brilliant blueprint Dragon Skull can use to further refine their songcraft.

Tracks to Check Out: “Nampat,” “Skeleton Hand,” and “Blood and Souls.”

#2025 #BlindGuardian #Brainstorm #ChaosFireVengeance #CirithUngol #DragonSkull #EpicHeavyMetal #GreekMetal #HeavyMetal #Manowar #PowerMetal #SacredOutcry #SelfReleased #Sunburst #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2025 #Triumpher #TYMHM

#blindguardian #brainstorm #chaosfirevengeance #cirithungol #dragonskull #epicheavymetal

1001 Other Albums @[email protected] · 2024-12-24 · 19:00 UTC

Frost and Fire, Part 2 – Heavy Metal Edition

This past SpaceAce Sunday, we looked at the first of two albums we have on The List that have the same, rather holiday-relevant title of Frost and Fire. While The Watersons’ album actually has a few Xmas/Xmas-adjacent songs, the same cannot be said of the album we are looking at today. But, it’s December 24, and so anything you listen to can be an Xmas album if you want it to be. Or, as they[1] say, “yippie kayak, other buckets!”

Cirith Ungol – Frost and Fire (1981, US)

And so, today we take a listen to number 892 on The List, submitted by Almoehi.

I know that many metalheads are absolutely fanatic about this band, but listening to this album the other day was actually the first I had ever heard of theirs! With the band named after the mountain pass in Tolkien’s Middle-earth that goes through the Ephel Dúath (you know, the one near Minas Morgul in Mordor…), one might expect a lot of LoTR-themed lyrics on this, the band’s debut album. But, perhaps hinted at by the fact that the band name is to be pronounced “sirith ungol” rather than the more accurate “kirith ungol”, the name seems more of a statement of the lyrics being in the fantasy realm, with a loose association to the LoTR books rather than them being an overarching theme. At any rate, I don’t recognize any of the lyrics on this album as being LoTR-themed, so I believe it isn’t until their next album, King of the Dead (1984), that we get to totally nerd out in that respect.

But! Let’s nerd out about the cover! This is the third album we’ve looked at so far on The List with a cover painted by the incredible Michael Whelan (on Mastodon: @MichaelWhelan).[2] The Frost and Fire cover is a crop of Whelan’s 1977 painting titled “Stormbringer”, and was used on the cover of Michael Moorcock’s book of the same name, from his Elric of Melniboné saga. Whelan in fact would go on to provide the art for every single Cirith Ungol album, with all of the paintings also pulling double duty on a Moorcock/Elric of Melniboné book!

Even just based on those credits alone, it’s perhaps no surprise that music journalist and musician Sarah Kitteringham – of the epic doom metal band Smoulder[3] and of BangerTV – is a giant Cirith Ungol fan. Sarah can dance circles around anyone in talking about this band (and, well, probably any doom/heavy metal metal band), and in fact wrote the liner notes for the 40th anniversary reissue of Frost and Fire! So, rather than me regaling you with any Wikipedia-level facts, I would suggest we head on over to Discogs and read through those liner notes together (click to images 2 and 3). If you’re a fan, perhaps also check out these demos and extras that were part of that anniversary reissue.

And so concludes our mini spotlight theme. Stay frosty and/or firey, all. 🤘

[1]Well, Charles Boyle at least says this.
[2]The others being Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell II and Sepultura’s Beneath the Remains.
[3]Fun fact: All of Smoulder’s album covers are also done by Whelan, and both of their LPs either reference or feature Moorcock.

#1001OtherAlbums #1980s #CirithUngol #heavyMetal #ListenToThis #metal #MichaelWhelan #music #musicDiscovery #Musodon #powerMetal #protoDoom #protoDoomMetal

#1001otheralbums #1980s #cirithungol #heavymetal #listentothis #metal