Published on Mar 3, 2000
It’s been a long time since Steely Dan released a new album.
Donald Fagen solo albums don’t count (though those don’t exactly
fall off trees either). Neither do live albums or various and
sundry greatest hits repackagings. How long has it been?
Well, let’s take a look at the music world that was around us
when
Gaucho hit the record stores… no MTV, no compact
discs, Led Zeppelin still intact, John Lennon and disco both just
barely alive, Britney Spears just barely not yet, and the record
stores that
Gaucho hit really were record stores. That, my friends, is a
long time. And while there are no official statistics, it would not
be far off to proclaim this 20-year hiatus as the longest stretch
between albums for any artist in the rock era.
And it is only appropriate this honor should belong to the band
(well, sort of a band, really only two people and whoever they
invite along) that even in their heyday of releasing new material
every year and a half were considered slow on the new record front.
That would be downright prolific these days, however, and it’s
quite amazing how meticulous and un-dated the Dan’s ’70s music
still sounds. The real question most probably have in mind now is
whether this new album is a lazy attempt at recapturing past glory,
or a legitimate comeback by an important and oft-underappreciated
artist.
Well, it certainly isn’t lazy. The production is still every bit
as meticulous, the musicianship is flawless, from the
quintessential Steely Dan dense horn sections, down to
multi-layered percussion sections that for all we know could be
played by an ensemble of Energizer Bunnies. Singer and principal
songwriter Donald Fagen still delivers his oblique tales with that
combination of cool detachment and slightly disturbing wit of which
only he is capable.
Musically, it’s what you expect. Now that the ’70s are back in
vogue and have been for some time, there’s no reason for any
beefed-up electronic arrangements; Steely Dan have always been
about restraint, and they do it admirably. “Almost Gothic” has a
tasty, swirling keyboard sound along with a vintage Rhodes piano
and a loping beat reminiscent of “Deacon Blues.” “What A Shame
About Me” is their classic poppy side, with a multi-voice
sing-along chorus like “Green Flower Street” or “Babylon Sisters.”
Overall, the disc feels more like
Gaucho and the two Fagen solo discs than like the earlier
Steely Dan.
But therein lies the main problem. Although there’s a lot more
life on this album than on Fagen’s professional-but-boring 1993
release
Kamakiriad, one still can’t help but long for something with
a little more bite. Of course, even the bitingest Steely Dan albums
usually have one or two
let’s-take-a-breather-before-we-get-back-into-the-heavy-stuff
tracks (“Chain Lightning,” “With A Gun,” or “Pearl Of The Quarter”
for example). But on
Two Against Nature, there isn’t any heavy stuff to get back
into. There are too many songs that would be at home on grocery
store P.A. systems.
The most major exception is the bluesy, sarcastic ode to incest
“Cousin Dupree,” an obvious Becker contribution, and easily
grittier than anything else on this album. It’s nice, for a change,
to hear a Steely Dan song that you don’t have to figure out what
the heck they’re singing about. After that, the most energetic it
gets is on “Jack Of Speed,” which has a crazy horn riff, and one of
the best Fagenisms on the album (“That right wing hooey sure stunk
up the joint”) but isn’t really any more intense than “Everyone’s
Gone To The Movies.” Customer service to aisle nine!
All right, this is probably a shortsighted observation, because
the less melodic Steely Dan songs have a knack for growing on you
gradually. I can see “Negative Girl” doing that in time, with its
hot-summer-night feel and atmospheric-yet-insistent coda. The same
goes for the opener “Gaslighting Abbie,” which is very awkward upon
first listen.
This is one of those CDs that you think is deep and complex, but
after it’s all over you can’t really remember how any of the songs
go. Whether that changes over time will ultimately decide whether
Two Against Nature will hold its own in the Steely Dan canon
with the classics. As for right now, it’s good to have them back,
and even if they don’t do anything better than this, that still
puts them leagues ahead over most of what’s out there. Let’s just
hope it doesn’t take until MTV turns 39 (and I turn 48! Yikes!) for
the next one.