The Pierces, Southern sisters Alison and Catherine, sure are connected. Catherine is the fiancée of Albert Hammond Jr. and the duo opened for the Strokes man on his recent UK tour. And their backing band was a veritable supergroup, made up as it was of members from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Longwave, Fischerspooner, and The Mooney Suzuki.

But let’s not carried away on the nepotism front. The Pierces recorded Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge without any record-company support. Disillusioned after recording two “adult comtempo” albums with major labels, they were delighted to find a producer Roger Greenawalt who lifted the girls’ flagging spirits by asking them “a question that they had never before been asked, “How do you want your music to sound?”

The Pierces are style icons. Well, that’s what the New York Post reckons, at any rate. Fashion journalist Danica Lo has advised her readers how to replicate their “Southern-charm-meets-urban-hipster” look.

Musically the duo are a less scary, yet ultimately more bewitching, version of folk experimentalists CocoRosie. They also take in country, psychedelia, and show tunes on a flighty tour of genres made for the purposes of their third album. And the duo paint the prettiest pictures, especially so on ‘Go to Heaven’ which includes the exquisitely erotic lyric: “Take off all the clothes that you have on and make love to me until the sun comes up”.

The Pierces know all the right people. Catherine has her Albert, Alison has been wooed by the former beau of Mischa Barton, Cisco Adler, and Roger Greenawalt is a Mr Fix-It who sets up artists with labels. But if Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge proves anything, it proves these sisters are capable of doing things for themselves, and expertly so at that.

(4/5)