Singer-bassist-frontman Mark Sandman died July 3, 1999, onstage just outside Rome doing what he loved most. While it was never intended as a swan song, The Night, Morphine's fifth official studio album (not counting a B-sides collection or a projected live album), has all the dramatic hallmarks of a long, permanent goodbye. The band's "low-rock"--of bass, baritone sax, drums, and Sandman's own Leonard Cohen-afterworld vocals--always had a finality about it. The serious mix of blues fatalism and muted jazz hysteria filtered through the downbeat world of Tom Waits ("Like a Mirror" is gift-wrapped in his image) and other lingering beatniks always means it's 3 a.m. in Sandman's gypsy soul. The title track, "Top Floor, Bottom Buzzer," and "Rope on Fire" will stand among the finest in Morphine's catalog--which will seem deeper and increasingly profound as distance creates a greater mystery for a band that always presented itself as an enigma. --Rob O'Connor
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