"Cure for Pain"

I don't quite remember what drew me to look into the band Morphine a couple weeks ago but whatever the reason is, I'm glad I did. The first track that popped up when I searched the band on YouTube was "Early to Bed" from the band's 1997 album, Like Swimming. The song's quirky sound, which included a baritone saxophone and what I thought was a baritone guitar (a personal favorite of mine), made me click on the next top video on YouTube, "Candy," from 1993's Cure for Pain, and I was more than intrigued.

I quickly downloaded a copy of the album, and set about researching the group as I began to peruse the album. Formed in 1989 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Morphine defied the typical trappings of a power trio. Rather than have a singer/guitarist, bassist and drummer setup, the group was fronted by singer/bassist (that's right, bassist) Mark Sandman, and rounded out with saxophonist Dana Colley and drummer Jerome Deupree. What makes Morphine stand out musically from many bands is not just their choice of setup, but their unorthodox choice of instrumentation: Sandman strung his bass up with 2 strings and played them with a bottleneck slide, and Colley played baritone sax primarily, but was also known to play two saxophones at once (influenced by the late Roland Kirk). This left Morphine with a low - end intense sound, which Sandman termed "low rock." Even though the band had limited success in America, they were quite popular overseas, and although I loved the band's sound from the first listen, I figured I'd give myself some time for the tracks to sink in before I started a review.

Cure for Pain starts off a short instrumental track ("Dawna") before launching into "Buena," a blues - tinged rock track that would seem at home being played everywhere from a dive bar to a stadium. Fans of the show The Sopranos might recognized "Buena" as one of the songs featured prominently in the 9th episode of the 1st season, "Boca." "Buena" saunters around with bass and drums driving the first minute of the song while Sandman's low croon carries the song into the chorus, when the baritone sax enters, and solos for a few bars before quietly slipping into the second verse.

Many of Morphine's songs are dynamic heavy, with instruments coming and going in ways that emphasize Sandman's beat - influenced lyrics, questioning himself and those around him, with the occasional (and not so thinly - veiled) lyrics about drug use and general debauchery. Sandman's lyrics seem to reflect a search purpose in life, and he certainly wasn't one to paint a pretty picture. The third track on the album, "I'm Free Now," has Sandman saying "I'm free now to direct a movie, Sing a song or write a book about yours truly, how I'm so interesting, I'm so great but I'm really just a fuck-up," giving all of Sandman's lyrics just the right amount of humility to make Morphine's songs not only catchy, but honest.


But don't think all of Morphine's tracks are whiney, low tuned songs complaining about life: the album's eighth track, "Thursday" is a gritty track that tells the tale of a man (Sandman perhaps?) who conducts and affair with a married woman where they "... meet every Thursday... in the afternoon, for a couple of beers and a game of pool." Things go awry when the woman invites him back to her house and a nosy neighbor sees his car and threatens to tell the woman's husband of their affair, causing the man to flee town. For something so serious, Sandman paints a picture that's somewhat humorous over a crunchy bassline with just enough baritone sax blasts to make the song a straight - forward rocker.


Without going into excessive detail about each and every song, I'll sum it up as such: Morphine is easily one of the most under - rated rock bands of the 90s. It's a rare opportunity to hear a band that honestly has a unique sound, and Morphine is one of them. While writing everything else, I tried my hardest to think of bands that sound like them or artists that have taken a page out of their book, but I kept drawing a blank. 


Some might think that's a bad thing, but I personally think that's the sign of talent.


- Dan