Valley of the Damned

In 2000, while the band were still called DragonHeart, they recorded a demo of this title and sent it to Noise Records, which got them a deal. That demo was cut between 8 and 12 October 2000 and mixed on the 20th, at Thin Ice Studios with Karl Groom engineering. After the contract and the change of name, it was re-recorded between May and October 2002 — mostly at Thin Ice Studios in Surrey by Groom, and at Lamer Luser Studios in London by Herman Li. Groom, Li and Sam Totman mixed it at Thin Ice, and Rob Aubrey and Li mastered it at Aubitt Studio. James Christopher Monger of AllMusic gave it four stars: "The debut album from U.K. power metal giants Dragonforce is a polarizing affair. Valley of the Damned could be construed as a bloated, Spinal Tap-style tribute to early-'80s fantasy-metal, and in many ways it is; however, it's so well played and so joyously executed that it could very well reignite the entire genre." In 2019 Metal Hammer ranked it the tenth best power metal album of all time. The running order here is the original's as printed.