The Night is the fifth and final studio album by the alternative rock band Morphine, released in 2000 via DreamWorks. The album expands the band's sound beyond their usual arrangements of previous albums (bass, saxophone and drums), introducing acoustic guitars, organs, strings and female backing vocals. It peaked at No. 137 on the Billboard 200.
Jerome Deupree, the band's original drummer, who had previously quit due to health problems, rejoined and played alongside Billy Conway, according to credits listed in the CD booklet. The Night was thus Morphine's first album recorded as a quartet rather than a trio.
The band recorded the album over two years in the Cambridge, Massachusetts, home studio of singer-bassist Mark Sandman.
The recording sessions were completed shortly before Sandman's sudden July 1999 death. Sandman and saxophonist Dana Colley oversaw the final mixing process.
The Pitch wrote that "itâÂÂs not a romantic exaggeration to say that this album is the trioâÂÂs 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 doesnâÂÂt sound like a cash register." Trouser Press wrote that "the tone may be dour due to the singerâÂÂs sudden death, but the music is the most fully realized and finely textured Morphine ever mustered." Exclaim! called the album "a slow, grinding burlesque that hovers tentatively between testifying to above and wallowing down below."
All songs written by Mark Sandman.
Adapted from the album liner notes.
Morphine
Additional musicians
Technical