The longest song on PetroDragonic Apocalypse is “Dragon” — a constantly changing prog-metal epic about the Gila monster’s (introduced in “Witchcraft” and “Gila Monster”) rampage. The first section is heavy, with extensive bass drum use and a thrash metal sound evoking carnage via a melody first heard in “Converge” (3:27). This leads to a second, Tool-inspired section where we hear that the military tries to take the beast down to little success. Following this, we get a chant followed by verses in latin sung by Joey which summon the dragon proper. The third section goes back to a more thrash-inspired riff, with a callback to “Witchcraft”’s outro before ripping into a syncopated, growly breakdown. After this we return to the start of the song with a final description of the dragon, which flies into the air, leading to the next song “Flamethrower.”
A fan favorite from the album, “Dragon” is a mythological track that evolves the band’s past prog experimentations (such as Polygondwanaland which is referenced with an altered riff from “Tetrachromacy”), while providing a new experience not yet heard in the band’s discography. Fans knew of a song about dragons from 2022-10-06 where Stu mentioned that the band had written more apocalyptic material, saying “it's about tornado alley, all the storms merging together and dragons.” While PetroDragonic Apocalypse is heavy on its environmental themes, the band has left the interpretation of the dragon up to fans. As Joey said in an interview for 3voor12, "maybe a dragon isn't just a dragon, maybe it's, y'know, Donald Trump or the rising ocean. Maybe that's the dragon."
After a teaser on June 3rd, 2023, Jason Galea’s music video for “Dragon” was released on June 6th. Starting with a montage of the band first seen on tour in 2018 the video then changes to show a horde of lizards heading towards an oil refinery with a plane crashing into one of the reservoirs. The reptiles shoot fireballs at the refinery to blow it up, while others run around and drink the oil. This section is interspersed with older footage of the band playing the song in studio. For the “Tool” section, we see the skeleton of a dragon put together leading to the reveal of a mechanical dragon. As the band plays on (with Joey singing the latin section), we see someone run from the beast into the forest. After another section of the band playing, we see an army of tanks prepare to shoot the dragon, before being crushed in rhythm with the song’s breakdown. During this, a high-tech spaceship flies by and destroys more oil refineries before latching onto the International Space Station and flying directly into the ground — destroying both. The person running is revealed to be a 3D model of Stu in a biker jacket, who is chased by the dragon even while on the back of a bike. After a massive stunt jump, Stu escapes, leading to the final moments of the song where the band is once again seen in the studio.
The video uses a limited color palette consisting mainly of black, white, red and orange, and is in a 4:3 aspect ratio with many hallmarks of analog video production. Galea said of the video: “over the last two months I dusted off my music video computer to slay the 10 minute ‘Dragon.’ I wanted to explore a harsh distorted visual palette using my live visual setup mixed with PS1 cutscene inspired animation and studio footage I filmed of the band. The animation was created using Cinema 4D, and processed through After Effects and a Tachyons circuit bent video unit.” The music video was later referenced on multiple show posters including 2024-08-15 and 2024-09-14, as well as the tour poster for the Phantom Island tour.
Alongside the video release was a single with the b-side of “Gila Monster.” It was released on PetroDragonic Apocalypse on June 16th, 2023. For the album The Silver Cord, “Swan Song” takes the melody from the song’s second section break with the extended version featuring the lyrics heard before the latin quotes. The dragon is also referenced in the extended version of “Set.”
While many songs from PetroDragonic Apocalypse were played before the album’s release in one form or another, “Dragon” took some time to debut. Cavs said in an interview for Modern Drummer that “Dragon” was a hard song to tackle due to its complex time signatures. “Some of the hardest ones are the ones that are the really fast songs and like a lot of polyrhythms so definitely ‘Dragon’ when we start playing that. We’re almost there. When we start playing that, that’s gonna be like, really, really hard.” He specifically noted that its opening and closing parts in eleven are difficult.
After being soundchecked at multiple venues, the song made its live debut on 2023-08-16 at Den Atelier in Luxembourg as part of a massive sandwich of “Gaia” > “Gila Monster” > “Dragon” > “Gaia.” This proved to be an exception to the rule as the following performances saw “Dragon” as a standalone track, sometimes a show closer. That said, the song would only be played five times in 2023.
In 2024, it started as a standalone track but would be incorporated into longer jams later in the year.