Donald Fagen (lead vocals, synthesizers, Rhodes, organ and other keyboards) and Walter Becker
(bass, guitar and vocals) seem to more solidly hit stride on this second album in their comeback.
This follow-up to Two Against Nature (2000), the Dan’s first new studio recording in twenty
years, seems more naturally and tightly woven than their previous effort and makes Nature
sound more like the necessary knocking off of rust (Yeah, some rust: Since the release of
Nature, Steely Dan was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and received the prestigious
American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers (ASCAP) Founders Award).
Becker and Fagen work with the same crackerjack jazz and rock session guitarists, keyboard
players, horn players, and drummers as they did on Nature. But it almost doesn’t matter who
the musicians are – they’re cards that Becker and Fagen have constantly shuffled anyway. The stars
on this Steely Dan album, as always, are the Steely Dan songs. FM radio be damned: Don’t
believe that “The Last Mall” and “Blues Beach” are the two best tracks. The strength of this album
lies elsewhere among these retro-futuristic tales of apocalypse, pornography, economic failure,
dissolution, terrorism and other modern gargoyles, cast in intricately casual jazz lounge rock.
“Lunch with Gina” is the requisite femme fatale groove, a tight body rocker from Dan’s
supple yet sharp funk bag about a psychotically obsessive beauty. Other lyrics obscure just as many
questions as they answer. “Godwhacker” sounds like it’s either about God hunting down Satan or a
murderous religious zealot (It is rather cool for a single song to suggest imagery from both
The
Sopranos and the “Whacking Day” episode of The Simpsons ). “Green Book” sounds cut
from Aja jazz-funk cloth, with a most propulsive bassline drilling straight into the cynical glint
in Fagen’s lyrical eye: “I’m so in love with this dirty city/ This crazy grid of desire/ The festive icons
along the way/ The boardwalk, the lovers, the house on fire…”
~ Chris M. Slawecki
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Track Listing: The Last Mall; Things I Miss the Most; Blues Beach; Godwhacker; Slang of Ages; Green Book;
Pixeleen; Lunch with Gina; Everything Must Go
Personnel: Donald Fagen (vocals, keyboards), Walter Becker (bass, guitar, vocals), Keith Carlock (drums), Jon
Herington (guitar), Hugh McCracken (guitar), Ted Baker (piano), Tony Kadleck (trumpet), Jim Pugh
(trombone), Walt Weiskopf (alto sax), Roger Rosenberg (baritone sax), Cindy Mizelle (vocals),
Catherine Russell (vocals), Gordon Gottlieb (percussion), Michael Leonhart (trumpet), Carolyn
Leonhart (vocals), Bill Charlap (Rhodes), Tawatha Agee (vocals), Michael Harvey (vocals), Ada
Dyer (vocals), Ken Hitchcock (clarinet), Chris Potter (tenor sax), Brenda White-King (vocals)
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