The Night (album)

The Night
Studio album by Morphine
Released	February 1, 2000
Recorded	Early 1999
Genre	Alternative rock
Label	DreamWorks Records
Producer	Mark Sandman, Morphine
Morphine chronology
Like Swimming (1997) The Night (2000)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[1]
Robert Christgau	[2]
Des Moines Register	[3]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[4]
Los Angeles Times	[5]
Orlando Sentinel	[6]
Pitchfork Media	5.7/10[7]
Rolling Stone	[8]
Spin	8/10[9]

The Night is the fifth and final studio album by the alternative rock band Morphine, released in 2000 via DreamWorks.^[4][10]

The album peaked at No. 137 on the Billboard 200.^[11]

Production[]

Jerome Deupree, the band's original drummer who had earlier quit due to health problems, rejoined alongside Billy Conway, thus making The Night Morphine's only album as a quartet rather than a trio.^{[citation needed]} Recording sessions for the album were completed shortly before the sudden July 1999 death of bass player and lead singer Mark Sandman; Conway and Dana Colley oversaw the final mixing process.^[12] The band spent three years working on the album in Sandman's Cambridge home studio.^[13][14]

Critical reception[]

The Pitch wrote that "it’s not a romantic exaggeration to say that this album is the trio’s most sensuous, satisfying recording, finally delivering on the diverting-but-two-dimensional original notion of what Sandman termed 'low rock' ... The Night is the first time in ages a posthumous release has made noise from beyond the grave that doesn’t sound like a cash register."^[15] Trouser Press wrote that "the tone may be dour due to the singer’s sudden death, but the music is the most fully realized and finely textured Morphine ever mustered."^[12] Exclaim! called the album "a slow, grinding burlesque that hovers tentatively between testifying to above and wallowing down below."^[16]

Track listing[]

All songs written by Mark Sandman.

1. "The Night" – 4:50
2. "So Many Ways" – 4:01
3. "Souvenir" – 4:40
4. "Top Floor, Bottom Buzzer" – 5:44
5. "Like a Mirror" – 5:26
6. "A Good Woman is Hard to Find" – 4:14
7. "Rope on Fire" – 5:36
8. "I'm Yours, You're Mine" – 3:46
9. "The Way We Met" – 2:59
10. "Slow Numbers" – 3:58
11. "Take Me with You" – 4:54

Personnel[]

Morphine

• Mark Sandman – voice, 2 string slide bass, acoustic guitar, piano, organ
• Dana Colley – baritone sax, tenor sax, bass sax
• Jerome Deupree – drums (tracks 1–8, 10, 11)
• Billy Conway – cocktail drum, drums, percussion

Guests

• Jane Scarpantoni – cello on "The Night", "Rope on Fire" and "Take Me with You"
• Mike Rivard – double bass on "Rope on Fire" and "Take Me with You"
• John Medeski – organ on "Top Floor, Bottom Buzzer" and "I'm Yours, You're Mine"
• Billy Beard – hand drum on "Rope on Fire"
• Brahim Fribgane – oud, frame drum on "Rope on Fire"
• Joseph Kessler – viola on "Rope on Fire" and "Take Me with You"
• Carolyn Kaylor, Linda Viens, Ramona Clifton, Margaret Garrett, Tara McManus – backing vocals

Charts[]

References[]