Dangerous Visions

Emerging in the early 80s at the end of New York’s legendary No Wave scene alongside Manhattan comrades Sonic Youth and Swans, Live Skull reshaped the aggression of burned-out post-punk into heavy, guitar- driven rock. This new release showcases their evolution, with Side 1 featuring recently recorded tracks, whilst Side 2 digs into the archives and includes four tracks from their 1989 Peel Session, released here for the first time. In A Perfect World, the first single to be taken from the album, is fraught with the tension of our times. Sirens wail, then a bass crashes through. Cooped up in his apartmentduring “the darkest moment of the [COVID-19] shutdown in NYC,“ singer and guitarist Mark C wrote lyrics and recorded vocals whileambulances sped past outside. “I sat in the dark...and dreamed of a more perfect world to replace the damaged one we lived in,” he recalls. “But, as gritty guitar sounds and the incessant beat of the drum and bass line charged forward, I knew we belonged to this worldof struggle and chaos.” Struggle and chaos is nothing new for Live Skull. Mark C and his fellow founder, guitarist Tom Paine, were inspired by the nihilistic sounds of No New York and the dissonant walls of Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham. Live Skull funneled those influences into hard-edged music that valued melody as much as anarchy. Side one nods to that history via a fiery update on “Debbie’s Headache” (originally found on the 1987 album Dusted). It also includes three new studio tracks from the current quartet, along with alive recording of “Day One Of The Experiment” from a 2019 European tour.