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More so than on Kamakiriad, or on the tight Everything Must Go, there is a sense of genuine band interplay on this record, which helps give it both consistency and heart -- something appropriate for an album that is Fagen's most personal song cycle since The Nightfly, and quite possibly his best album since then.
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It is some of Fagen's finest work to date.
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BlenderThe unhurried, full-retail rock arrangements are splashed with lite-R&B syncopations and snazzy-jazz harmonies. [Apr 2006, p.111]
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Ultimately, it's hard to shake the feeling that something is missing.
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Entertainment WeeklyWith its precisely calibrated funk grooves, exquisitely tasteful playing, and general air of blissed-out languor, Morph is firmly in the smoothed-out tradition of latter-day Dan discs like Gaucho. [17 Mar 2006, p.111]
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Los Angeles TimesAt his best he spins these tales with a mix of literary craft and jazzman's cool, animating his narratives with vivid and colorful language. [5 Mar 2006]
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MojoThe joy of Steely Dan's early albums was that their superior playing, production and craftsmanship was vibrantly energetic, spiced with rollercoaster twists and turns, and deeply sardonic lyrics... Fagen now lacks those vital extra elements, leaving just craftsmanship with no spark. [Apr 2006, p.104]
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Indeed, if you are looking for surprises then you won't find many. As well as stellar production, another Fagen trademark is his willingness, even necessity, for songs to run their natural course.
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Despite the craft in this music--no, because of the craft in this music--most younger fans will run from Morph like it carried the very plague. No question, this album sounds uniform and rather overpleasant--engineered to a sheen of perfection.
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Q MagazineSmart, sophisticated, noodly--what else would you expect? [Apr 2006, p.113]
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Contains his catchiest, most immediate compositions in decades.
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Morph the Cat is too complacent, too enamored with its own lacquered contours.
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There's something weirdly compelling about hearing Fagen settle into this particular rut, especially on a set of songs about growing old in an age of terror.
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The album is imbued with a post-9/11 dread, which deters Fagen from recycling the nostalgia and Lynchian fantasy of his previous albums.
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UncutMorph... sounds utterly of a piece with Aja. [Apr 2006, p.104]
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Fagen's triumph of rendering post–9-11 New York most recalls how perfectly Steely Dan caught LA on 1980's 'Gaucho.'
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 37 out of 45
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Mixed: 2 out of 45
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Negative: 6 out of 45
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May 28, 2017
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Jan 2, 2012
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JasonKJul 9, 2007