Everything Must Go

After trading their infamous two-decade hiatus for an armful of Grammies, Steely Dan breezed through the recording of Two Against Nature's follow-up in a year--near record time in the oft-tortuous Becker/Fagan sessionography. Loosening their notoriously anal retentive studio bent has yielded upbeat immediacy, an almost un-Dan-like brightness to jazzy funk and blues that snap and crackle--even if pop is obviously the farthest thing from their fevered brows. But anyone who confuses the sunny disposition of "Blues Beach" and others here with anything but an ever slyer incarnation of their trademark irony and icy veneer just isn't paying attention. Bookended by "The Last Mall" (a cool, chunky update of "Black Friday"'s apocalypse) and a bluesy, laconic title track that serves up metaphors for bankruptcies both commercial and moral, Walt and Don argue that our once fair society may well be past redemption. Better to simply close out the excess with a good blue-light special. "Godwhacker" serves jazz-head notice on no less than the almighty, whilst Becker makes his belated Steely Dan vocal bow on the slinky "Slang of Ages," daring to be termed "Newmanesque" for rhyming "netherworld" with "Duke of Earl"--if not his lugubrious, lounge-lizard delivery. Abetted by guitarists Hugh McCracken and Jon Herrington, the sax of Walt Weiskopf (and others), and synched to the playful grooves of drummer Keith Carlock, Becker and Fagan bring a deliciously detached elegance to "Green Book" and "Pixeleen"'s sharp musings on digital vidiocy, forging an album that's a cunning, symbolic reminder that the sun will shine brightest just before it explodes.