The first single "Cousin Dupree" is certainly the catchiest track of the album and should have been a huge hit. The title track is irresistible with its funky bass line, keyboard flourishes, tasty guitar work, and excellent sax solo. This track only gets better with repeated listens and is certainly their best track they've recorded since the Aja album. The strongest tracks appear to be the tracks where the horns are very prevalent, such as "Jack Of Speed", "West Of Hollywood", and "Almost Gothic", the last sounding very reminiscent of their music from the Pretzel Logic or Katy Lied albums. Other tracks such as the opener "Gaslighting Abbie", the mid-tempo "What A Shame About Me", and "Janie Runaway" are all very good. Everything here is very well done, but the album isn't fantastic from beginning to end like Pretzel Logic or Aja. However, it's a stronger album than either Gaucho or The Royal Scam. Donald Fagen's vocals continue to be in fine form, even if they're not nearly as strong as on their '70s releases. A very strong album, definitely worth checking out.

Well-crafted, but can be tiring after a while
The album did not appeal to my ears on the first listen, but several days on the same truck-infested traffic lanes later, the songs on the CD slowly worked their way on my musical subconscious. The horn arrangements, sax solos, a muted trumpet dig on "Almost Gothic," and even a brief vibraphone solo by Dave Schenk on "Negative Girl" were interesting but neither head-turning nor ear-bending. After a while, I found the songs tiring to listen to.

The unmistakable Steely Dan sound is there: funk rhythm, vamp on a major 7th or minor 7th, and Becker's seemingly pre-meditated guitar solos. Compared to their last two albums, though, Two Against Nature contains more well-crafted songs, tighter harmonies, flatted-fifths, and unpredictable chord changes. However, the vamps are clichéd; there's only so much improvisation you can do on a minor 7th chord. Pretty soon, the sax lines sound nearly the same anywhere in the album.

It would be folly to label this album simply as either "pop" or "jazz." It's neither. It defies categorization, as evident in the reviews of some critics who are at a loss as to how to describe the album: soft rock, pop-rock, smooth jazz, and other crossover labels that don't really mean anything, musically. While the songs do contain some elements of pop and jazz, they are unique in themselves.

A jazz purist may raise an eyebrow at the suggestion that Two Against Nature is a jazz album. After all, a fiery saxophone solo does not a jazz album make. On the other hand, a pop music fan may be confused at the "pop" tag, expecting to hear simple three-chord progressions and getting instead, various chord changes and harmonic colors.

"Two Against Nature" is proof that Walter Brecker and Donald Fagen are excellent musicians, first; and intelligent songwriters, second. But this is one album that I would put on only when there's company for dinner, not when I'm sipping beer after a long hard day. That would be a Miles Davis CD; but that's another story.

Was Ennui Ever so Refined ?!
(3.5 stars) As a long-standing SD fan, for better and worse, my response to this album is colored by my many joyful hours of listening to most all of the songs on most all of their albums for many years now. Maybe that's unfair, but it's the only assessment I can give...
Poetically, Becker is as refined, poignant, and coy as ever. I find the lyrics themselves more enjoyable to read than to hear! However the melancholy and sarcasm of the early days still seemed to ride over an undercurrent of love and joie de vivre, whereas today's lyrics seem more weary and somewhat bitter. Even the well-crafted coy obliquities seem now to be more mental titillation than true poetry.
Musically, there is NO piece on this album that hits me at the first hearing. While some do "grow on you" with repeated listening, they don't have the melodic or rhythmic dynamism and wit of the earlier songs, most of which were immediately catchy AND also aged well. Combine this with the slight thinning of Becker's voice and vocal studio effects and nearly all of the melodic lines sound very woozy.
So while the refinement of this album leaves room for a growth in appreciation, I don't find that it has the legs to become a "classic" in one's collection.

Steely Dan Wakes Up to Middle-Aged Uncertainties
Most people said that Steely Dan's reunion tours of the early 90s were some of the most "unlikely" musical events of the decade. So naturally, when "Two Against Nature" was released in 2000, fans and critics were elated with both glee and anxiety; it was their first studio release in twenty years, but after those twenty years, perhaps the odds were not looking kindly on Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. Becker said "I think the audience for Limp Bizkit is probably not going to be interested." Fagen added "Compare the names Steely Dan and Limp Bizkit, you have the answer right there." But a break in the Top Ten and four Grammys proved everyone wrong; "Two Against Nature" won Album of the Year, fortunately beating Eminem for the honor, a feat that's not bad for your first album of new material in twenty years.
When one puts the whole thing in perspective, Steely Dan are the perfect "band" (i.e. duo) for this day and age; their self-criticizing cynicism and sardonic outlooks were just aching to address the musical world of the new millenium. The material cynically embraces a slew of characters who fit seamlessly with those created by Becker and Fagen in the 70s; Steely Dan sarcastically charms the self-absorbed girls one might encounter at the local mall ('Almost Gothic,' 'Negative Girl'), the narrators of the songs humorously getting nowhere as they are "hit with cryptic stuff" and "jerked around." Other tracks continue the dismal marches of the male characters one would have found in previous works like 'Midnite Cruiser' or 'Deacon Blues'; 'Jack of Speed' is a sharp example, while 'What a Shame About Me' is lyrically devastating and, as always with Becker and Fagen, musically misleading. Smooth, cool, and addictive music ironically tells the lyrical tales that are unusual and disturbing ('Cousin Dupree'), almost-sincere (almost being the key word) longings for something past (the title track, 'West of Hollywood') and just-out-of-reach romances ('Gaslighting Abbie,' 'Janie Runaway').
As always, the stories from the gutter and the more beautiful gutters are masked behind such sleek, glossy instrumentation, and Steely Dan seem as if they spent those twenty years plotting to address the year 2000. But the truth is, "Two Against Nature" proves that this kind of musical achievement can only come from a duo that knows exactly what to say and when to say it.

It grows on you...
When I first heard this album, I REALLY didn't like it. I was very new to Steely and had all the old cd's, but didn't yet have "Everything Must Go" (which I prefer over this one). Upon repeated listenings I appreciated the intricacies and detail of the rich and sonically complex harmonies these guys write (Fagen arranged it all, and it shows his perfection in each song). Of course Dan is known for the EXCELLENT sound of their studio CD's, and I highly recommend the DVD audio edition, which on my 5.1 surround DVD player speakers sounds like heaven.
Never so much a band as the slyly crafted specter of one, Steely Dan's mid-1990s "return" to live performance was as surprising as it was perverse. They'd previously toured only once, round about the era of Watergate, pet rocks, and Shaft. A half-decade after their concert comeback and a mere 19 years after Gaucho seemingly closed out their recording career, the jazz-pop conceit of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen deliberately dropped back into a recording landscape where they weren't so much seasoned vets as alien ambassadors. Two Against Nature, indeed. The tack is instantly familiar: a musical/lyrical reconciliation of Monk and Newman, with familiar harmonic flourishes, nimble studio chops, and an icy, world-class cool, as willfully insulated from hip-hop and techno as it was from disco and Top 40. Less concerned with melodic hooks than a canny sophistication of mood and manner, Becker and Fagen never let a trite melody get in the way of a good story, whether their protagonists are plotting some nefarious obliquity ("Gaslighting Abby"), Southern-fried incest (the deliciously funky "Cousin DuPree"), or bleakly confronting dashed expectations ("What a Shame About Me"). A little more musically languorous perhaps, its trademark cynicism now undercut by hints of sadness and regret, this is nonetheless a Steely Dan album worthy of the name, and like the best of them, one whose subtle charms reveal themselves in surprising ways. -Jerry McCulley