CDVS: Tears for Fears Vs. Steely Dan

There's a happy, nervous expectation we often feel when a pretty good band comes back from the stone-cold dead. At that point, the "new release" is a creepy resurrection that threatens the safety of nostalgia and yet promises to legitimize our longing for some sentimental old sound--a wist that's been there all along, but only publicly expressed during that latest and greatest phase of all-night parties, when a sappy indiscretion with the stereo becomes the only way to go. "Didn't someone play `Head Over Heels' last night?"

But the unexpected new release is still just an album like any other, and the history is ultimately irrelevant. Sort of. Maybe it's like that high school friend you run into and squint at 10 years later, looking for anything familiar: "Oh yeah, that thing they do that I used to find so refreshing! Or was it annoying?"

In the case of Tears for Fears, it was both. Everybody Loves a Happy Ending brings back the TFF feeling, but also reminds us of where they were headed 15 years ago when we last saw them at the prom: away from their sleepy, cruising mid-'80s freshness and into a late '80s ditch of striving a bit too hard for a multilayered Beatles effect. There's a modern tweak here, though: TFF fans will find themselves properly engaged with a new album that often sounds remarkably like Supergrass, albeit Supergrass under the influence of Abbey Road, as opposed to Pink Floyd's Animals.

Compare with Steely Dan, which rose from an even longer nap to record a new album that sounded just like...a modern Steely Dan. And it wasn't surprising. After all, the unapologetically lurid and libertine '70s stylings of Fagen and Becker always implied an almost oafish constancy that would certainly show up with any reunion effort, as it did in 2000 when Two Against Nature was released. The cold integrity of this album, combined with the band's perennial bitterness, make them rather like another high school friend you remember--the one for whom you felt a lot of respect, yet couldn't ever get along with. A couple of decades later, you're both a little wiser, but not much else has changed.--Dave Surratt