Happiness

Album Review

The ghost of Morphine can't help but hang heavy over this Dana Colley-led group. As baritone saxophonist for that band, Colley was a large part of its jazzy, low-rock groove. He brought some of that to the post-Morphine Twinemen, which also featured Morphine drummer Billy Conway. But even by adding Laurie Sargent's sparse guitar to the Twinemen, the vibe was inherently different. Colley retains the female vocalist concept for A.K.A.C.O.D.'s debut (the C.O.D. stands for last names of Colley, vocalist/songwriter/bassist Monique Ortiz, and drummer Larry Dersch) but strips the lineup back to Morphine's core of fretless (occasionally two-string) bass, drums, and especially over-modulated, often electronically enhanced sax. The result is a more intense, less jazzy, harder attack led by Colley's eerie baritone work and Ortiz's ominous contributions. Her vocals are a ringer for those of Concrete Blonde's Johnette Napolitano, and when she runs her voice through processing, it creates a heavy, dark, and often oppressive wall of sound that is not for the squeamish. Colley's saxes blast out like an entire horn section and clearly drive the sound, but Ortiz's sinister, throaty, somewhat detached voice and edgy lyrics keep this music reverberating in bleak shades of black and gray, not surprisingly the color scheme of the CD's photos and art. The opening title track kicks things off with a thunderous, brutal force that is anything but happy and the album continues in that threatening vein. Colley and/or Ortiz write the material, with the exception of Bob Welch's Fleetwood Mac hit "Hypnotized." It's an intriguing choice for the disc's only cover and, given its UFO fixation and an arrangement that owes much to Little Willie John's "Fever," integrates well with the rest of the project. Colley's sax reverberates like a fog horn on "Three Chairs" as Ortiz's rubbery basslines bob and weave between the waves of sex and gloom that drive the words. It's a perfect and even natural extension of Morphine's unique style and pushes the approach of that band and the Twinemen into shadowy, more menacing, and even sensual territory that fans of both will appreciate. You're left with the feeling that somewhere the late Mark Sandman is smiling.