COUNTDOWN TO ECSTASY

Steely Dan from USA is the branchild of Donald Fagen (vocals, keyboards), Walter Becker (bass, guitar, vocals). Helped by some skilled musicians on every album among others Rick Derringer on guitars or Jeff Porcaro (later on from Toto fame) on drums, they released some respectable albums across the years. Their second offer from 1973 named Countdown to ecstasy is to me their best album. Here everything works perfectly, from the top notch musicianship to the great ideas involved by the all memebers. This is quite more up tempo and with more balls the later releasease. Light jazz rock what is all about in Steely Dan music with some pop rock, art rock moments added, the result is quite entertaining most of the time. Smooth and elegant arrangements like on Your Gold Teeth, the best tune of the album to my ears and the ending track King of the world being another highlight. Maybe at first spin might be easy listning for some , but this is definetly not comercial music, is quite diffrent then most light jazz rock bands from the '70's, because Walter Becker and Donald Fagen has an unique style in composing, specially the vocal department is very good. All in all very solid album, maybe their best release, some considered Aja to be their peak, but I'll have to go with Countdown excsasy because everything from here is excellent and very tight. 4 stars easy