It’s been a long time since Steely Dan released a new album.
\nDonald Fagen solo albums don’t count (though those don’t exactly
\nfall off trees either). Neither do live albums or various and
\nsundry greatest hits repackagings. How long has it been?<\/p>\n
Well, let’s take a look at the music world that was around us
\nwhen
\nGaucho<\/i> hit the record stores\u2026 no MTV, no compact
\ndiscs, Led Zeppelin still intact, John Lennon and disco both just
\nbarely alive, Britney Spears just barely not yet, and the record
\nstores that
\nGaucho<\/i> hit really were record stores. That, my friends, is a
\nlong time. And while there are no official statistics, it would not
\nbe far off to proclaim this 20-year hiatus as the longest stretch
\nbetween albums for any artist in the rock era.<\/p>\n
And it is only appropriate this honor should belong to the band
\n(well, sort of a band, really only two people and whoever they
\ninvite along) that even in their heyday of releasing new material
\nevery year and a half were considered slow on the new record front.
\nThat would be downright prolific these days, however, and it’s
\nquite amazing how meticulous and un-dated the Dan’s ’70s music
\nstill sounds. The real question most probably have in mind now is
\nwhether this new album is a lazy attempt at recapturing past glory,
\nor a legitimate comeback by an important and oft-underappreciated
\nartist.<\/p>\n
Well, it certainly isn’t lazy. The production is still every bit
\nas meticulous, the musicianship is flawless, from the
\nquintessential Steely Dan dense horn sections, down to
\nmulti-layered percussion sections that for all we know could be
\nplayed by an ensemble of Energizer Bunnies. Singer and principal
\nsongwriter Donald Fagen still delivers his oblique tales with that
\ncombination of cool detachment and slightly disturbing wit of which
\nonly he is capable.<\/p>\n
Musically, it’s what you expect. Now that the ’70s are back in
\nvogue and have been for some time, there’s no reason for any
\nbeefed-up electronic arrangements; Steely Dan have always been
\nabout restraint, and they do it admirably. “Almost Gothic” has a
\ntasty, swirling keyboard sound along with a vintage Rhodes piano
\nand a loping beat reminiscent of “Deacon Blues.” “What A Shame
\nAbout Me” is their classic poppy side, with a multi-voice
\nsing-along chorus like “Green Flower Street” or “Babylon Sisters.”
\nOverall, the disc feels more like
\nGaucho<\/i> and the two Fagen solo discs than like the earlier
\nSteely Dan.<\/p>\n
But therein lies the main problem. Although there’s a lot more
\nlife on this album than on Fagen’s professional-but-boring 1993
\nrelease
\nKamakiriad<\/i>, one still can’t help but long for something with
\na little more bite. Of course, even the bitingest Steely Dan albums
\nusually have one or two
\nlet’s-take-a-breather-before-we-get-back-into-the-heavy-stuff
\ntracks (“Chain Lightning,” “With A Gun,” or “Pearl Of The Quarter”
\nfor example). But on
\nTwo Against Nature<\/i>, there isn’t any heavy stuff to get back
\ninto. There are too many songs that would be at home on grocery
\nstore P.A. systems.<\/p>\n
The most major exception is the bluesy, sarcastic ode to incest
\n“Cousin Dupree,” an obvious Becker contribution, and easily
\ngrittier than anything else on this album. It’s nice, for a change,
\nto hear a Steely Dan song that you don’t have to figure out what
\nthe heck they’re singing about. After that, the most energetic it
\ngets is on “Jack Of Speed,” which has a crazy horn riff, and one of
\nthe best Fagenisms on the album (“That right wing hooey sure stunk
\nup the joint”) but isn’t really any more intense than “Everyone’s
\nGone To The Movies.” Customer service to aisle nine!<\/p>\n
All right, this is probably a shortsighted observation, because
\nthe less melodic Steely Dan songs have a knack for growing on you
\ngradually. I can see “Negative Girl” doing that in time, with its
\nhot-summer-night feel and atmospheric-yet-insistent coda. The same
\ngoes for the opener “Gaslighting Abbie,” which is very awkward upon
\nfirst listen.<\/p>\n
This is one of those CDs that you think is deep and complex, but
\nafter it’s all over you can’t really remember how any of the songs
\ngo. Whether that changes over time will ultimately decide whether
\nTwo Against Nature<\/i> will hold its own in the Steely Dan canon
\nwith the classics. As for right now, it’s good to have them back,
\nand even if they don’t do anything better than this, that still
\nputs them leagues ahead over most of what’s out there. Let’s just
\nhope it doesn’t take until MTV turns 39 (and I turn 48! Yikes!) for
\nthe next one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":25314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6277],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-36520","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-steely-dan","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36520"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36520"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}