Only two years after their excellent comeback release (A 2nd Shape), The Wolfgang Press have released another nine tracks to excite their dedicated fanbase.
Asylum Variations shows no retread of the previous album, but a full-on evolution of what was laid down before, that familiar disaffected voice strung between the splashy synthesis and pedal-pawed bite. The songs are strong, propulsive, itchy with traction, the roughened sheen holding to the jaded narrative.
That haunted underpin of Michael Allen’s voice is even more intriguing this time round, a strangely poetic and pensive wordplay-ruled emotive, the music flexing to its semi-opaque sway, underlined in knotted repeats. The album started life as a response to the sorry state of 2026 and no doubt the political ineptitude that seems to follow it like a lost sheep; but like all good responses it keeps things personal, burns stronger for this foundation.
The slo-mo swish, the burning skivel of “Speakers Don’t Speak” holding tight to Allen’s discontent.The narcotic curve of “Blood On The Leaves” melodically cloaking Allen’s weary stagger. “Somebody here turned the truth to lies”, he whispers to a tightening periphery.
Andrew and Stephen Gray ply the sonic emphasis but never overplay their hand, that snaky zest that shadows the doubt in Allen’s puzzling metaphoric on “Sail By”. The caliper clank / low-slung shot limping through the construct, atmospherically curving the brew, words bouncing the percussive like flash cards torch-lighting the interior of that litter-strewn cage we call human.
A calculated excitement that eats into the downbeat wizened melancholy on “Bind Us”, up-shot by an undulating harmonic that shivers a sympathetic chink to the sung questioning, drawing you ever closer to the narrative. A skilled play that lights up “The Art of Writing”’s lyrical fall in wah-spiralled reflection, coupled with some beautiful chorusing corridors provided by Allen’s daughters, all caught up in a beat-driven skewer of angled perspectives. A gunslinger adrenaline dying off to an eerily lit Travelodge tunnel vision, complete with a Lynchian pinch of acrylic underfoot.
That lovely urban-esque shimmer that’s become richer since A 2nd Space, slippery synthetics mirroring the downturned delivery on “Embrace The Light”. The ambered yearn of dying light to mutated siren, again flourished in echoing femininity and fluttering sustain, leading you straight into the dragging delirium of “Mad Made Heaven”. The dramatic paring down / layering up of repeated intensity scooping deep, a spectring waspiness thrown into noisy overspill in an impressive curtain fall that has you wanting more.
Catching The Wolfgang Press live at London’s Lexington back in the early part of the new year and later in Bristol in the springtime gave tantalising glimpses of what was coming – who’d have thought they’d surpass expectation so well.
-Michael Rodham-Heaps-
