Vapors Of Morphine is original Morphine Sax god Dana Colley alongside original Morphine Drummer Jerome Duepree with Jeremy Lyons and Tom Arey from the J. Geils Band as they continue their Low Rock journey with a trip through the bands Fear & Fantasy.
The album opens with Blue Dream that has a slow intro like someone walking over wet leaves before the band come in to take us on a gentle dubby journey through the Blue Dream full of woodwind and sparse yet expansive drumming as they ask if we'd like a taste of their magic brew.
Golden Hour Is a hazy recollection of a perfect hour with the one they love that has a laid-back air that recalls Gomez's 78 Stone Wobble.
Irene is a slow stripped back song about the dreams they have of Irene, that feels floaty, as if they are laying down in bed beside her for a nice cuddle while managing to threaten to take Morphine and die if his love isn't reciprocated which seems a touch drastic.
No Sleep is about being up all night getting up to no good over a woozy slow motion dub rock backing that is jazz inflected, it has a great sax solo part that sounds like guitars flying by, as you get about enjoying the wee small hours.
We then get a version of Special Rider the old Skip James classic, that I have lots of versions of, this has echoes of Lorette Velvette's version and slows it down a touch, but this a masterful, nice and seductive with some wondrous sax floating through the air.
Lasidan is a cover of the tune Ali Farka Toure wrote with Ry Cooder and sounds like they want to be playing it sitting crossed legged in a souk as this has a very North African feel to it.
Drop Out Mambo is certainly a song to tune into, as that slow mambo beat gets going, you slowly dance across that barroom floor in New Orleans and you drop out the back when the police arrive, this is an intoxicating whirl and plea to solve the homeless problem in America that see's all sorts of drop out's being jailed for being too poor to pay rent.
Doreen is a song of love and lust for that lady from Burlington Vermont, I'm glad it's not a cover of Frank Zappa's Doreen but almost hoped it would be the Ace Of Base song Doreen. I love the call and response part of this song as they go out into the woods together with the music becoming more suggestive as they ask again what's her name. In a way this song also makes me think of Stella by Chris Spedding but with fonk.
Ostrich is a nice long slow song of rejection and pain with a back porch of a juke joint slow blues on a sweltering evening feel as he sips away his single status.
Baba Drame is a cover of the classic Boubacer Traore Senegalese tune, they take it to the depths in Arizona in the baking heat and you want this washing through you as you sit and stare at the stars.
Phantasos & Phobetor is a spaced-out droning acid fried journey through the Greek god of nightmares dream space.
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