You can’t go far wrong with a bit of Morphine. The nineties band, that is. Not the drug. Drugs are bad but Bjørn Berge isn’t and he sets out to prove just that with album “Morphine” as he duly and respectfully takes songs from the aforementioned band’s back catalogue and turns them into the kind of thing that makes roots festival attendees go weak at the knees.
Morphine – the band – always had a way of positioning themselves just outside the mainstream if not so far out that only the cognoscenti would ever have heard of them. As writers of songs, Morphine could step well into a world of quirky lyrics but there was never any doubt that they knew exactly what they were doing. Bjørn Berge, likewise, knows exactly what he is doing and consequently has little difficulty in translating these eight songs into the modern blues rock style. It helps, of course that he is no stranger to making a guitar tell a story and, somewhere over his own rainbow, he has found a way of making the music of Morphine seem like it appeared only yesterday.
So, respect is the clear intent of Bjørn Berge on his album and, who knows, by translating Morphine into a format that today’s audiences will recognise, more of today’s beautiful people might decide to ride the Morphine train.