Donald Fagen
Morph the Cat
(Reprise)
Thanks to a studiously retro palette of sounds, Donald Fagen's third solo outing in 24 years is likely to delight those Steely Dan fans who particularly enjoy the duo's jazzier albums.
It's much lusher sounding than the relatively spartan Kamakiriad of 1993 or the last two collaborations with Walter Becker, and Fagen says it completes a trilogy begun in 1982 with The Nightfly. In many ways, however, this sounds more like a sequel to that album. The guitars are pure Royal Scam-period Dan, and the electric piano work and harmony vocals recall The Nightfly, Gaucho and Aja.
Lyrically, though, it does begin where Kamakiriad left off. Whereas The Nightfly was about youthful dreams, that album was concerned with middle age, and this one is preoccupied with mortality. The Brite Nitegown takes its title from a phrase W.C. Fields used to describe death, and It's What I Do - a standout track - takes the form of a conversation with the ghost of Ray Charles.