REVIEW: Steely Dan, Two Against Nature (Giant)
- Paul Andersen
It has been 20 years since Steely Dan last put out a studio album, yet amazingly, for the duo of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, time has stood still. Their new album, the perfectly titled Two Against Nature, sounds as if the natural progression of the band from Gaucho to now has seamlessly cut through those two decades, causing a definite deja vu reaction to take place. It's as if they have simply taken an extended vacation.
Of course, Steely Dan is not your typical pop band. Adored by a large legion of fans, they traverse a path that is as much rooted in jazz as it is in rock. Combining top production values -- they have always been one of the cleanest-sounding bands in popdom with exceptional virtuosity by a cast of top studio musicians, the duo works in a realm of music shuttered away from any normal connection to what passes for popular music. The Dan has always been ahead of their time; it will be interesting to see if the marketplace has caught up to them, yet.
Yet in many ways, Steely Dan has produced an album that is as safe as it is brilliant. Yes, brilliant (you can capitalize it if you want to), but the odd set of songs that make up Two Against Nature sounds as if they could have been part of the sessions that made Gaucho. As full of odd characters and elliptical meanings as ever, they have given their fans precisely the album they have clamored for all these years.
It wouldn't even be a bone of contention if Fagen hadn't come out with Kamikiriad in 1993. A 'solo' album produced by Becker, it was one of the decade's best. A stunning work that stands as perhaps the best merging ever of pop and jazz into a singular music, it took chances that Nature only hints at. The fact that Kamikiriad could have just as easily been released under the Steely Dan moniker is beside the point.
Oh well. At least the boys are back, proving once again that occasionally, time can stand still, even though they're still ahead of it. There's probably a logarithmic equation there somewhere, waiting for a mathematician to work out the Steely Dan theorem.
