Steely Dan

In January 2000, in anticipation of the release of Two Against Nature the following month, Steely Dan filmed a concert at Sony Studios in New York that was later released as a home video called Two Against Nature: Steely Dan's Plush TV Jazz-Rock Party in Sensuous Surround Sound. Eight years later, the Dutch Immortal label has acquired rights to the video for release in Europe under the much shorter title In Concert. The CD under consideration here is simply the separately released audio component to the video. Although the band was promoting the new album with the show, only five of the 14 songs come from Two Against Nature, the rest dating back to the group's '70s heyday. But that in itself makes a statement about the new material, since a song like "Jack of Speed," sandwiched between "Kid Charlemagne" and "Peg," or "Gaslighting Abbie," between "FM" and "Black Friday," sounds right at home. The performance demonstrates that, although it followed a gap of 20 years in Steely Dan's catalog, Two Against Nature sounded very much like its previous work. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide