Sharin Foo is calling from the side of the road somewhere in Oregon, having exited the Raveonettes' bus in search of better reception. And it just doesn't seem quite right.

Looking and sounding as if they just stepped off a 1960s movie screen, Foo and her musical partner, Sune Rose Wagner, shouldn't be biding their time on a clunky tour bus. They should be cruising down the coast in a vintage convertible, holding hands with the top down.

The world the Raveonettes inhabit may never have existed. It's a '50s- and '60s-era America dreamed up by a pair of small-town Danish kids - a world so full of sex, violence and romance that Quentin Tarantino could probably be convinced to make a movie about it.

Like its predecessor, 2003's Chain Gang of Love, the recently released Pretty in Black features cover art casting the photogenic pair as matinee idols. But it's the songs themselves that provide the imagery. Sounding as though Buddy Holly, the Ronettes (more on them, or one of them, later), the Velvet Underground and the Jesus and Mary Chain all ran into Phil Spector's Wall of Sound at the same moment, they paint sexy, moody, atmospheric pastiches of the glamorous world Wagner and Foo - who share vocal duties - are inviting us into.

"Our music is very cinematic - it conjures a lot of images, and it's almost like little screenplays within the songs," Foo says. "It has a kind of film noir, B-movie-ish feel."

It's difficult, she acknowledges, to explain just how she and Wagner - who writes the songs - wound up trying to recreate a time and place so far from their own life experiences. "It's just a matter of liking that simplicity and romantic nostalgic feeling" she says. "It seemed very exotic for us, living in small towns in the countryside - it's a fascination we both had."

That others would come to share that fascination was no sure thing, considering Wagner and Foo's retro-harmonies and Spectorization aren't exactly guaranteed winners. But weary of '70s garage rock and '80s art-pop revivalists, critics have welcomed the emphasis on an earlier, less exploited era - especially because the Raveonettes have tapped into it without coming off as completely derivative.

"It wouldn't really be very interesting for us to just try to do something the way it was done back then," Foo says. "It's our quest to bring this music alive and make it new and exciting again. We want to do it in a modern way - that's why we use tracks and samples and modern sounds, and why the lyrics apply to a more modern kind of lifestyle."

More so than the feedback and assorted other studio effects that sometimes overwhelmed Chain Gang of Love (which, thankfully, they've toned down on Pretty in Black), it's those lyrics that are key.

On the earlier album, the explicitly sexualized words juxtaposed with sugar-sweet harmonies and melodies seemed aimed at shock value. Now, the Raveonettes are more interested in telling stories, creating characters and painting pictures. Combined with a more eclectic sound (leanings toward country melodies hinted at last time are fully fleshed out in a couple of tracks, including album opener The Heavens), the lyrical maturity means they no longer come off as a one-trick pony.

On an album littered with highlights - the multi-layered Sleepwalking, the Western-tinged Red Tan, a playful cover of My Boyfriend's Back - the second-last track, Ode to L.A., stands out most. Pairing Foo with '60s icon Ronnie Spector in a winking nod to the obvious influence the former Ronette and her infamous ex-husband had on the Raveonettes' sound ("a way to come full circle," as Foo puts it), it's a spectacular paean to the City of Angels - or, again, whatever the Raveonettes imagine as the City of Angels. If released, it could go down as one of the year's top singles.

That song, in particular, hints at how far the Raveonettes could still go. Wagner, a dedicated student of music, is still coming into his own as a songwriter, weaving an increasingly complex web of influences. And Foo has the vocal talents to make good use of whatever he comes up with.

Asked about soundtrack work, which the band has already dabbled in, Foo says she'd love to "really sit down and work from scratch with a producer and a director." But that would almost be a shame. The Raveonettes are creating their own cinema; there's no need to cloud it with someone else's visuals.