Codeine Velvet Club may have started out via ideas shared over e-mail, but you'd never know it from the duo’s self-titled album. The project of Scottish cabaret singer Lou Hickey, who performs at one of the U.K.’s biggest burlesque clubs, and Fratellis frontman Jon Lawler, the pair delves into glamour and decadence that are miles from Lawler’s main project. Hickey is in her element on these songs, but Lawler sounds particularly renewed by this working holiday away from the Fratellis’ hedonistic rock. While making the album, the duo recruited an orchestra, a gospel choir, Belle & Sebastian’s Mick Cooke to write the orchestral arrangements, and trumpeter Derek Watkins, who has played on every James Bond theme song from the ‘60s to the 2000s. Despite the project’s grand scale, Lawler’s pop instincts are just as sharp as ever, particularly on the appealingly seedy “Vanity Kills,” one of Codeine Velvet Club’s many knowing rants against glamour (even as the duo revels in it). Despite Hickey and Lawler’s Scottish roots, America’s dens of iniquity are a major influence on them, whether it’s the tension between Tinseltown’s old-school elegance and new-school sleaze on “Hollywood,” which they celebrate with a Phil Spector-esque Wall of Sound and sinister lyrics, or “Nevada,” which sings the praises of Las Vegas’ fools’ gold allure with lavish swirls of strings. The band does nod to Lawler’s rock roots every once in a while, but only briefly: “Little Sister” starts out with Fratellis-like brashness before segueing into the kind of hot jazz that was last heard in a speakeasy. However, Codeine Velvet Club still sounds most special when the pair pours on the drama, as on “The Black Roses,” which glitters with spy theme suaveness, and “Reste Avec Moi,” a lovelorn duet with a melody so familiar, you’d swear you’ve heard it before. The album’s only drawback -- and it’s a slight one -- is that Lawler and Hickey seem so eager to fill up every inch of their songs with sounds that they forget that silence can be just as dramatic, if not more so. Nevertheless, Codeine Velvet Club is a witty debut that suggests the potential for more.
© Heather Phares /TiVo