* Funky Green Dogs

STAR

(TWISTED)

The Funky Green Dogs -- Ralph Falcon and Oscar Gaetan, Miami-based DJs who created deep house in the early '90s as the Murk Boys -- have given up the raw scream of their debut CD. That release, a club classic, flaunted Pamela Williams's howling big-hipped anthems like "The Way," "Fired Up!", "Some Kind of Love," "Until the Day," "Why," and "So Good." This Green Dogs CD features garage style, slick and dressy and hardly a substitute for the Murk Boys' ecstatic rumble. It's sung by Tamara Wallace, who's polished and polite in the manner of Motown girl groups. Her best moments sound softly joyous, a bit like club icon Deborah Cox, but she rarely interacts with the slick echo-effects, electronica, and flashbeats that Gaetan and Flacon fling at her. One misses, in this mismatch, the nasty triplet rhythms and savagely delicate percussives native to Miami freestyle that made the house jams of Falcon and Gaetan feel so instinctive. If you like garage, Star will do, barely; but if it's Murk you're looking for, give Star the cold shoulder it deserves.

-- Michael Freedberg