The mood was really what set these musicians apart from the musicians of previous decades.
The mood was, in a word, depressed.
Their music showed no enthusiasm, no excitement, no exuberance. Whatever they played, they played it because it helped them vent their anger, frustration, loneliness, etc.
It was the ultimate consequence of a decade of "realignment", when the "yuppies" ("young urban professionals") took over the "hippies", when the "baby boomers" reneged on idealism in favor of realism.
The new generation had no ideals to fight for. Drugs had been a "flag" for the hippies, but they became merely drugs, merely a way to escape reality, for this generation.
Another flag of the Sixties, free sex, was turning into the tragedy of the century, thanks to AIDS. It was as if this generation was being punished for the "sins" of their parents' generation.
No wonder that gloomy, bleak atmospheres rule in the songs of Robin Lee Crutchfield's Dark Day, A Certain General, Swans, Live Skull, UT. Live Skull (1) progressed towards the tense, lugubrious and jarring sound of Dusted (1987), featuring monochord vocalist (and future Come founder) Thalia Zedek.
UT (1), a female power-trio, offered a convincing update of the "no-wave" aesthetics (amateurish, irreverent and desperate cacophony of insane vocals, discordant guitars and frantic rhythms) on Conviction (1986).