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...

Tempting fate with a great gimmick, Morphine barreled into the fast lane five years ago, driving a chesty blare of two-string slide bass, baritone sax and drums into the murky twilight of rock noir. Fueled by taut, inveigling songs of sex and paranoia, the Boston trio's glowering cool was (and is) as unmistakable as Bogey and as persuasive as the bouncer in a strip joint.

Morphine's power alley,...

Morphine make mood music, and the mood is definitely noir. The blue haze hangs over not only their songs' scenarios – with their temptresses and telling glances – but also the stripped-down instrumentation: bass, drums and baritone sax, fronted by songwriter Mark Sandman's weary baritone vocals. On "Thursday," the single from Cure for Pain (1993), he laid down a hard-boiled narrative...