Members of Morphine & Jeremy Lyons is a power trio that abstains from the rock-god cliché through a lineup of two-string bass (Jeremy Lyons), baritone sax (Dana Colley), and drums (Jerome Deupree). Dana runs his bari sax through all kinds of guitar-like electronics and references Rahsaan Roland Kirk with his circular-breathing and blowing two saxes at once. Jeremy adds the smoldering heat of the Delta blues honed during his decade-plus of playing the streets and clubs of New Orleans. Dana and Jerome, the surviving members of Morphine, update and push beyond the legacy of that ’90s underground favorite.

The pulsing, low rock and blues fusion of the debut album by Members of Morphine and Jeremy Lyons honors the Morphine legacy without being restricted by it. The nine tunes by Dana Colley (baritone sax), Jeremy Lyons (slide guitar and two-string bass), and Jerome Deupree (drums) draw from the Morphine songbook as well as from Lyons’ deep immersion in Delta blues and New Orleans styles. The trio has toured in the U.S. and has played selected venues internationally.

“We’d been playing together for a couple years before we even considered doing Morphine tunes. So we already had a sound and a rapport, which continues to develop as we blend our styles together. The CD is a pretty good illustration of that process,” Lyons says.

The trio’s process is so organic that they let the music dictate the direction of the band. “We just play. See where the music takes us,” Colley says. They were playing local, under-the-radar gigs with the moniker The (Ever Expanding) Elastic Waste Band when the Double Door of Chicago encouraged them to perform for a broader audience on the Spring 2010 tour. (Both band names are on the debut CD, which has no additional title.) Since then the band have played the New Orleans’ Voodoo Experience 2011, the Maquinaria Festival 2011 in Santiago Chile, and other shows in Argentina and the Netherlands. (During the South America tour, the trio was expanded to a quartet, to include Morphine’s second drummer, the much loved Billy Conway.) Most recently, Dana, Jerome and Jeremy have been invited to play the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in 2012.

The debut CD

Lyons’ relocation to Boston is chronicled in the disc’s song “Hurricane,” a driving blues inspired by R.L. Burnside. The CD also includes four tunes from the Morphine songbook: “Thursday,” “All Wrong,” and “Let’s Take a Trip Together,” originally recorded on Cure for Pain, the group’s break-out second record, and the lesser known gem, “Pulled Over the Car.” The Lyons-penned “Different” bridges between his bluesier material and the Sandman songs. New Orleans horns make a guest appearance: trombonist Craig Klein (Bonerama) and trumpet player Michael Ray (Kool & the Gang, Sun Ra Arkestra).

The sound

The trio blends the bluesy base of Morphine’s grooves and the eclectic rhythms of Lyons’ Deltabilly fusion. Throw in a heavy dose of psychedelic rock and you get Morphine gone even swampier down-home. Or Delta blues in dreamland. In other words, Psycho-Delta Low Rock.

The Band

Colley and Deupree backed Sandman on the group’s first two records, Good and Cure for Pain. Deupree was replaced by Billy Conway but returned to play along side him on the final album, The Night. The distinctive sound of Colley’s electronically-treated bari sax mark such projects as Twinemen and A.K.A.C.O.D . Deupree’s improvisational prowess and super-charged drumming call to mind the likes of Mitch Mitchell or Bill Bruford and has been a staple of the Jeff Robinson Trio at the Lizard Lounge Poetry Night for over ten years. He’s also appeared with Orchestra Morphine, Either Orchestra, and The Humans.