The career of Morphine was cut tragically short when frontman Mark Sandman suffered a fatal heart attack onstage in Rome in 1999, but four years on, At Your Service, a "best-of" compilation, is a welcome reminder of what a great band they actually were. Their key feature--more key, even, than Sandman's husky, tar-stained vocals and visions of dark barroom seediness--was undoubtedly Dana Colley's ruddy baritone saxophone lines, pushed right to the front of the mix to riff and solo in lieu of guitars. One thing's immediately clear--that Morphine didn't do chaff. "Thursday" hits like a punch to the ribs, a heady tale of lust, infidelity and simmering violence that finds Sandman fleeing town with a cuckolded husband in hot pursuit. "Cure for Pain" is as redemptive as its title, Sandman's bass strings bending with a taut beauty, Colley wheezing out some of his best solo lines. And late-period tracks such as "Top Floor, Bottom Buzzer" prove that Morphine could stretch their formula a long way without ever quite breaking it.
There's a sweat-drenched Quicktime movie of Sandman and the boys performing "Shame" and a handful of unreleased tracks to tempt the fans. But in an age where stripped-down blues combos such as the White Stripes are reclaiming rock & roll, it'd be an injustice if the memory of Morphine couldn't be passed on to a new generation of potential converts. --Louis Pattison (Review copyright Amazon.co.uk)
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