Inspired by the likes of Glenn Branca, Sonic Youth, and the New York no wave movement, Live Skull delivered the kind of relentlessly bleak, abrasive noise rock that made their contemporaries Lydia Lunch and Swans into underground cult figures during the '80s. The band favored a crushingly loud guitar-based grind while they tempered their assault with sophisticated arrangements and thick, hypnotic sheets of noise. Their subject matter was invariably downcast, though not as shocking as some of their peers. 1986's Cloud One was where the group's approach began to gel properly, and the arrival of Thalia Zedek on guitar and vocals on 1987's Dusted helped set the stage for their best album, 1989's Positraction. Live Skull came out of retirement with 2019's Saturday Night Massacre and 2023's Party Zero, which revealed that their bleak vision was as clear as ever.