Pile of Skulls

Pile of Skulls is the seventh studio album by Running Wild, released in 1992. It is their last album with guitarist Axel Morgan.

The song "Jennings' Revenge" tells about the exploits of pirate Henry Jennings.

The lyrics of "Treasure Island" are based on the book of the same title by 19th century author Robert Louis Stevenson.

Critical reception
Pile of Skulls was met with mostly positive reviews from critics. Steve Huey of All Music Guide called it one of Running Wild's strongest efforts. While calling it too ambitious, he thought Pile of Skulls combined the group's trademark pirate subject matter with a unifying concept about corruption and abuse of power throughout history.

In a 2013 interview, Rolf Kasparek spoke about the song "Bloody Island" from the 2013 album Resilient and explained that the demo version of the song would've been a great fit on the album.

Track listing
Music and lyrics written by Rolf Kasparek, except "Pile of Skulls" by Kasparek and Axel Morgan and "Win or Be Drowned" by Kasparek and Piotr Smuszynski.


 * The 2017 Remastered version contains a second disc, featuring the following songs

Personnel

 * Rolf Kasparek – vocals, guitar
 * Axel Morgan – guitar
 * Thomas Smuszynski – bass
 * Stefan Schwarzmann – drums


 * Additional Musician
 * Ralf Nowy – keyboards on "Chamber of Lies", effects on "Sinister Eyes"


 * Production
 * Jan Němec – engineer, mixing
 * Thomas Körge – engineer
 * Karl-U. Walterbach – executive producer
 * Rock 'n' Rolf – producer
 * Andreas Marschall – cover art