When music is inspired by horror it generally falls into one of two categories: grinning, punked-up danse macabre ala The Misfits and Ghoultown or the various blackened shades of heavy metal. Thinguma*jigSaw take a unique tact when it comes to marrying horror conventions to musicality; they call their music “splatterfolk,” a fitting sobriquet for a style that warps traditional folk music to lyrics inspired by late-night fright flicks, murderous folklore, and a permanently morbid state of mind.
Prior to the album's release, vocalist Seth Horatio Buncombe remarked that Ghoul's Out was going to be Thinguma*jigSaw's “pop album.” How many pop albums can you name that feature song titles such as “We're All Doomed” or “The Reaper Cometh”? While Ghoul's Out is more accessible than Thinguma*jigSaw's previous Awake in Whitechapel, I doubt we'll see “The Perfidious Sarcophagus,” a protest song against death itself, crack the pop charts any time soon. There are hooks here, of course, but they're jagged hooks that sound more like they belong to the scores to A Nightmare on Elm Street or Halloween than they do the Top 40.
Musically, Thinguma*jig do a lot with a skeletal selection of instrumentation. Buncombe plays banjo and delivers the lyrics with an unsettling high warble, while Martha Redivivus adds melancholic touches of signing saw, flute, melodica, mandolin, and ukulele. A few folk luminaries (such as Sharron Kraus, Sport Murphy, and Cian Nugent) contribute guest appearances, but overall Ghoul's Out is a sparse and spare affair. The music is given the space to breath and rasp; it's beautiful the way a tree robbed of its leaves is beautiful in its desolation.
