I dig the vibe! The cutscene is awesome (why skip, I really like it :D :D :D)
I think for me I mostly struggled to find the right character to the level, it seems that for the first one "Fletcher" is an overkill and clears it relatively easier than the others, but it is very challenging to complete the first round with the melee char ("Brutus"). And I think for the second round "Ash" is actually better because of the "AOE" dmg.
"Brutus" doesn't seem to work on either of these two levels that I tried and didn't manage to complete :D :D :D so I would put it as my skill issue :D
Please let me know if I missed anything so I can try again :)