BBC Review
It's the unmistakable sound of an ageing hipster using his chops for the power of good.
Chris Jones 2006-03-13
Morph...completes Fagen's solo trilogy that began with 1981's classic, The Nightfly. Whereas that addressed a mythical 1950s, and Kamakiriad predicted the near future, Morph...is very much rooted in the present. Set in New York; the title track's titular feline hovers like a 'Rabelesian cloud' over that city's streets, bringing an indefinable joy to its post 9-11 denizens.
The usual, obsessively crystalline R'n'B acts as a bedrock for some fine soloing from a cast of Steely Dan regulars. But it also highlights some of his most wittily acerbic lyrics yet, delivered by a voice that's hardly changed a jot since 1971.
They serve up the usual trivia: death (''Brite Nitegown''), sex (''The Great Pagoda Of Funn'') and love - albeit with an airport security guard (''Security Joan'': 'honey, you know I ain't no terrorist!'). It's good-humoured, intelligent and cynical, and it's the unmistakable sound of an ageing hipster using his chops for the power of good.
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