The Goat is Dripping Blood...

From the death of Indianapolis' Casque arises Sacred Leather, and they are here to remind you what metal is. Sacred Leather drop Night Hunger ( a two song banger of scorched venom) to bludgeon ear canals with a stripped down and ripping riff drenched vehicle of the damned and doomed. All the greats are smashed together in a blood soaked amalgam conjuring elements of thrash, d-beat, doom, and early black metal. The guitar is a writhing serpent of chaos of straight ahead face smashing riffs and blast furnace solos. The drums are the collective galloping of the four horse men: unabashedly caving in the weak's skulls and furious in the pursuit of the apocalypse. The bass is the undercurrent of torture seeping from the depths of the abyss. The vocals are gruff and wailing, spreading the seed of the damned and sinfully indulgent. Sin fueled and casting their collective spell over listeners, Sacred Leather have conjured a two songs peek into the fiery hunger of all woebegone sinners with Night Hunger. Indulgent and armed by the beast, Sacred Leather are coming for the souls of the willing and unwilling alike. Burn all the temples and run wild with Sacred Leather. Bleed the goat and fornicate in its spilled blood. Sacred Leather would be proud.

*Good luck finding Night Hunger... Be prepared to catch Sacred Leather whenever or wherever live as the live show is the only way you're liable to hear their songs anytime soon.

New Kvlthammer Song...

Here's a fresh jam from the men of Kvlthammer. Kvlthammer drop a four minute assault very much akin to a Craft-ian jam of fuck you with Hate is Not Enough. Downtrodden and mid-tempo at its fastest, Hate is Not Enough is an early taste of the forthcoming full length from these Indy veterans. Plodding drums and those collective down strokes... The song is dragged through the gutter and slowed to a crawling pace at its midpoint from a tolling bell. Kvlthammer is a band that's served their collective time in multiple established bands: Demiricous, Coffinworm, Skeletonwitch, Lair of the Minotaur, Suicide Note, and Deadmen to name a few. With this much dirt and grime under their nails and on the soles of their boots, Kvlthammer will surely produce a molten slab of hate and venom on a full length release. Hate is Not Enough is a black bile teaser of the bands potential.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5iKwNv0U-g

Overpower 7"...

It's been almost two years, but Indianapolis' Overpower still provide a churning boot to the head. You need a brief foray into violence summoned through hardcore, well this is it. Overpower weren't around long at all, but a beat down is usually finished quickly. This 7" is three songs of hate, spite, and vengeance rolled into a bare knuckle brawl manifested aurally. Fast, aggressive, angry, and austere: Overpower were bent on devastation via social unbalance and a raw hardcore fuck you attitude. There are only so many ways to accept an ass kicking, but once upon a time Overpower were willing to find how many there were. Dead and gone, these three songs bash skulls and bloody knuckles.

overpowerxxx.bandcamp.com/

Old Detroit Falls...

And so will you. Boddicker--False Flag...

You want violence. You need violence. You sustain your shit-stained existence on indignity and conflict. Your life is the pursuit and actualization of criminal intent and endeavoring. Your psyche is eroded by a crumbling civilization and a social disconnect that leads to a lawless reality of self awareness. The streets and back alleys are your home. You are the rusted blade in the side of a society of normals and squares--all sheep. Their rules are your toilet paper. Their laws are meant to fall in a hail of bullets, and you're the leading edge of the impending firestorm. You grind and shift effortlessly in your attempts at subjugating the status quo. Everything is a weapon. Every loose brick or rock is hurtled towards the nearest target. Every cocktail is Molotov. Your knuckles are a cycle of healing scabs as they become your personal wrecking balls. Smashed faces and collapsed chests are they're primary goals. You feed on the carnage. Your targets will fall. Flesh is weak, and your amorality is of the highest value. The down beat of your steps signals the arrival of death's accomplice. Run for the hills, crash the borders; it will not save the false or your intended targets. You are a war party of destruction and disaster, willingly taking and pillaging whatever you desire. Raise the False Flag, and set your senses and enemies aflame.


boddicker13.bandcamp.com

Boddicker will be on tour this June. Their next show in Indianapolis is 6-12-2014 with Eyehategod at Birdy's.

Kvlthammer rehearsal demo...

Mid-tempo-y... Reminiscent of Fuck the Universe era Craft... It sure sounds promising from the vets (Coffinworm, Skeletonwitch, Demiricous, Deadmen, Whiskeytits...) in Kvlthammer. Catch them live, if you can, before they drop anymore music on the pit of the internet. Otherwise, let this vocal-less song demo wet your appetite for further destruction.

soundcloud.com/carlbodies/kvlthammer-track-02-practice

New Year, New Casque...

2014 has commenced with a polar leveling of the midwaste of the U.S. How appropriate for Casque (black metal rippers from Indianapolis, Indiana) to drop Furious Machine of Perpetual Disgust. This fucker is a no nonsense blast of spiraling chaos hacked up from the void in the form of pissed off cave dweller black metal. The goat is indeed damned. The death machine is unleashed. It's a filthy ten minute excursion in to the depraved head space of Casque's members. Ever punishing and wretched, the guitar work is swarming with tremolo speed to wailing solos. The mid-tempo parts are still furious but held in check by the hammer forged drumming. The bass is the ever distorted low thunder of an invading horde. And those vocals... The trills and wails of the tortured and haunted are channeled and captured as throat decimation spewed forth from the fleeing souls of annihilation. Casque conjure the cold isolation that is harbored in the disgust of a decaying society populated by a viral and parasitic species. Carl Byers of Clandestine Arts Recording effectually seizes Casque's unbridled brutally, as the mastering work of Geoff Montgomery of The Ensomberoom polishes the frost covered peaks and valleys in the most suitable sub-zero haze. Casque are relentless with their venom and filth. It's the only way. And if Furious Machine of Perpetual Disgust is any indication, then Casque are sure to commit aural genocide of all the false and weak standing before them.

casquescum.bandcamp.com/album/furious-machine-of-perpetual-disgust

Best of 2013...

Best of 2013 or something like that... Here is a list of albums that The Cracked Skull listened to more often than not in 2013. There are probably some albums left off this list for various reasons. Feel free to venture a guess as to which release saw the most spins. All in all, not a terrible year in heavy music... In no order...

Grave Upheaval--Untitled
Portal--Vexivoid
Lux Interna--There is Light in the Body, There is Blood in the Sun
Merkstave--Merkstave
The Body--Master We Perish
Altar of Plagues--Teethed Glory and Injury
Kinit Her--The Poet and the Blue Flower
Ruin Lust--Tethered and Lashed
Oranssi Pazuzu--Valonielu
Clandestine Blaze--Harmony of Struggle
Pissed Jeans--Honeys
Wormlust--The Feral Wisdom
True Widow--Circumambulation
Mouth of the Architect--Dawning
Sacriphyx--The Western Front
Nails--Abandon All Life
I Shalt Become--Louisiana Voodoo
Cloud Rat--Moksha
The Haxan Cloak--Excavation
Lycus--Tempest
Vastum-- Patricidal Lust
Fell Voices--Regnum Saturni
Rote Hexe--Red Witch
Chelsea Wolfe--Pain is Beauty
Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats--Mind Control
Bolzer--Aura
Sigur Ros--Kveikur
Malthusian--MMXIII
The Sterling Sisters--Hale
My Bloody Valentine--MVB
Castevet--Obsian
Wardruna--Yggdrasil

Indiana bands that ruled in 2013...
Kata Sarka
Boddiker
Casque
Conjurer
We Are Hex
Black Goat of the Woods
Parasitic Twins
Nakay
Torturess
Kvlthammer
Coffinworm
Nuclear Hellfrost