Employing only a two-string slide bass, a baritone saxophone, a drum kit and vocals – all tuned to the register of a house band in a Las Vegas strip club – the Boston trio Morphine evoke the zonked swing of lounge jazz and the grind of dirty blues while maintaining firm rock & roll convictions. It's a neat trick, considering that the band doesn't find much versatility in its instruments and that the unrelenting depth of its register should – but somehow doesn't – sound like Morphine are playing from the bottom of a well. The group's most serious limitation is the voice of bassist-singer Mark Sandman, who makes a huge effort to sound suave but has no imagination. He's like an uptight Lux Interior (of the Cramps), with all the growl but no phrasing to speak of.

But if his vocals can be faulted, Sandman's songwriting can't. He's literate and sharp, whether sketching ecstasy in "A Head With Wings" or wearily citing and reciting the tragic details of "Thursday" or piling up stunning images in a frenzy on "Mary Won't You Call My Name?" The 13 songs on Cure for Pain are tightly and, for the most part, invariably structured. A shronking sax sets the grooving fulcrum in motion; the drums tick, then crash; the bass plonks menacingly before initiating a series of chugging riffs that repeat doggedly until the whole enterprise runs out of steam. There's no nostalgia in Morphine's sound, in spite of its swanky gleam, just the belief that rock has every right to swing. (RS 678)

ARION BERGER