Morphine's fourth studio release, 1997's Like Swimming, was a bit of a disappointment when compared to such stellar earlier releases as Cure for Pain and Yes. After singer/two-string bassist Mark Sandman died of a heart attack on-stage in 1999, many Morphine fans assumed that Like Swimming would be the band's swansong -- thankfully, it wasn't. The Boston trio completed their fifth album just prior to Sandman's untimely passing, entitled The Night, and it's definitely an improvement over its predecessor. Whereas many of the songs on their previous album sounded unfinished and rushed, The Night sounds like a fully realized work. In fact, the band took time to focus on expanding their minimalist sound to include other instruments (cello, violin, upright bass, oud, organ) and new approaches (female backup singers, string arrangements), while Sandman produced the album himself. Highlights include the ghostly "Souvenir," the Middle Eastern sounds of "Rope on Fire," the sultry album-opening title track, and the up-tempo (by Morphine standards, anyway) "Top Floor, Bottom Buzzer." The Night shows that Morphine was just entering a new phase of their career, and it's a shame that Mark Sandman is no longer with us to follow through on this promising new direction.
From Wiki: Morphine was an alternative rock group formed by Mark Sandman and Dana Colley in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, in 1989. The band ceased to be in 1999 after the death of frontman Mark Sandman who died of a heart attack.Morphine combined blues and jazz elements with more traditional rock arrangements, giving the band a very unusual sound. Sandman's distinctive singing was described as...
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It's funny the things that get to me these days. Normally I'm not really phased by much, but there are some things that I've come to expect. One of these things is a turn away from some of the traditional thinking about music that most of the people here on Mog tend to express, so imagine my surprise when I see a mogger clamoring about one of the big music traps I keep seeing the music indust...
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| Title | Lyrics | Buy |
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| 1 The Night |
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| 2 So Many Ways |
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| 3 Souvenir |
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| 4 Top Floor, Bottom Buzzer |
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| 5 Like a Mirror |
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| 6 A Good Woman Is Hard to Find |
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| 7 Rope on Fire |
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| 8 I'm Yours, You're Mine |
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| 9 The Way We Met |
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| 10 Slow Numbers |
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| 11 Take Me With You |
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 "The Night")
