by Stewart Mason
On their farewell album, 1995's Funky Little Demons, the Wolfgang Press take the final plunge they had been toying with on 1991's Queer and finally make a straightforward, unashamed dance record lacking the oddball arrangements, dark undercurrents, and inscrutable left turns of their earlier, artsier post-punk releases. The results are, with the exception of the percolating, nearly ambient &Christianity,& not particularly compelling. The album is neither particularly funky nor at all demonic, and in these tamer surroundings, Michael Allen's formerly compelling baritone murmur sounds kind of mannered and pretentious. This would all be less of an issue if the songs were better -- no one complained when former labelmates Colourbox got on the dancefloor as part of the team behind &Pump Up the Volume,& because that single beat all of their previous releases to a bloody pulp -- but songs like the insipid &Going South& and the glossy &She's So Soft& sound like nothing so much as Gang of Four's miserable mainstream plunge, Hard. Funky Little Demons is a disappointing end to a once promising band.