Last month the long-running New York no wave act Live Skull revealed plans for a new record called Dangerous Visions, arriving on December 11. The new album is made up of new tracks and some previously unreleased recordings from their 1989 John Peel session.
Having already shared the newbie “In A Perfect World”, today they unleash one of the older cuts in the form of “Adema”, on which we hear, as guitarist Tom Paine describes, “where Live Skull might have gone next if the band hadn’t been destined to break up within the year.”
This time around we hear Thalia Zedek on lead vocals, her fearless rasp the perfect projective for Live Skull’s thunderous and uncompromising playing, together pummelling and powering through myriad strains. The previous song “In A Perfect World” held fear of the modern day in its tone, but “Adema” is the inverse, the band coming out with the urge to fight bubbling in their veins. Zedek is standing up for herself and her rights, and with an imperious wall of guitars and drums behind her, you’d be brave to stand in her way. That it sounds so prescient in 2020 is both impressive – and unsettling.
Live Skull’s new album Dangerous Visions comes out through Bronson Recordings on December 11. You can find the band on Bandcamp, Facebook and Instagram.
