Live Skull release What Could Go Wrong? with new focus track 4th Conspiracy
Live Skull have released their new album, What Could Go Wrong?, through Bronson Recordings, led by the politically charged focus track 4th Conspiracy.
The nine-track record is the New York quartet’s fourth studio album since reforming in 2016. Recorded and mixed by the band at Mark C.’s Deepsea studio in Hoboken, New Jersey, it finds Live Skull working through dense guitar interplay, downcast vocals and abrasive rhythmic shifts while turning their attention towards political unease in the US.
4th Conspiracy takes its spark from an upside-down American flag flown outside a Supreme Court Justice’s home. The track moves through a tense, shadowy arrangement as the band take aim at conspiracy narratives and the deliberate blurring of political reality.
The band say: “It’s easy to make up endless conspiracies, to try and obscure the truth. But what a joke, most of us can see right through the pathetic smoke screens.”
Free-form jams shape a more volatile record
Live Skull built the material from extended studio improvisations, recording their jams before extracting riffs, changes and fragments to form the album’s songs. The process brings a restless edge to the record, with Mark C. and Dave Hollinghurst’s guitars pushing between repetition, melody and noise.
The album also features bassist Colyn Hunt, whose darker phrasing locks into drummer Rich Hutchins’ loose, swinging attack. Earlier singles Internal Combustion and Freak Out! Jackpot introduced the record’s rawer direction ahead of release.
The group recently played What Could Go Wrong? in full at a Brooklyn pre-release show at Main Drag Music, joined by Philadelphia no-wave outfit Luna Honey and Brooklyn band The Dice Holes. Further Live Skull dates are expected to be announced.
The full track listing
What Could Go Wrong? contains nine new tracks:
- Freak Out! Jackpot
- Internal Combustion
- What Could Go Wrong?
- Reality Is Optional
- Music Doesn’t Exist
- 4th Conspiracy
- Cracking the Inner Circle
- Chromatic Tiger
- Your Last Warning
Purchase the album via Bandcamp or stream What Could Go Wrong? here.
