World Sanguine Report — Skeleton Blush

Well, this album is quite a trip, and a rain-soaked labyrinthian trip at that. World Sanguine Report is a supergroup made up of members of bands I’ve never heard of (Sly & the Family Drone and Sarandon excepted), utilising drums, guitars, bass, and vocals as well as brass, woodwind, synths, and piano. As you might imagine, this gives Skeleton Blush a very colourful sound palette, which is deployed sometimes traditionally, sometimes more experimentally; many songs are founded in traditional forms like blues and cabaret songs, but then explode into and out of stretched mutations.

You could make a case that structurally Skeleton Blush is akin to Beefheart handing some unfinished songs to Zappa and telling him to complete them, however, there is another grand musical icon hanging over the album, to add to that duo: Tom Waits. If Beefheart and Zappa provide the notes, then Waits provides the general tone: a romantic world of storied-individuals in backstreets, staring up at the moon. The press release for Skeleton Blush boasts that the album has ‘the feel of a gesamtkunstwerk,’ and I’m inclined to agree, it does feel like a self-contained, thick world - but it’s a world I have trouble entering.

Waits doesn’t just influence the atmosphere, he also provides the template for Andrew Plummer’s vocals, and this takes a while to get past. However, at points Plummer’s voice exhibits beautiful control, and melodic portamento with an emotional gravitas worthy of Waits. In fact, for my ears, it’s the more traditional, ballad-esque passages of the album which really shine: the melancholic moments of No Reason, the moodiness of Aou, and the skewed beauty of Phosphorescent Darling (aided by the angular swoops of guest vocalist Seaming To). Away from these more cabaret sections, World Sanguine Report expand and contract like a very hardboiled, Henry Cow influenced prog outfit - sometimes to the extent that it’s difficult to follow precisely what’s going on. Blench has several furious passages, and the title track has a wonderful hectoring, brass led opening; the most striking section, though, is the stuttering, pointillistic groove found on God Spat Human Blue Dance, which is equal parts mind-stopping and danceable.

I find myself again in the position of saying ‘this isn’t really my cup of tea,’ but the caveat here is that, despite this, it’s transparently obvious that Skeleton Blush is a very good album. Concentrated and deep in terms of musicianship, songwriting, and atmosphere, the album genuinely does create its own little world. If Tom Waits recorded an album under the supervision of ReR Megacorp, it would quite likely sound like Skeleton Blush.