Morella and the Wheels of If are a musical period piece. Their first album, Shipwrecked, recreates a spooky place and time not sepia-toned, but certainly black and white. A period of antique lace, dramatic choral voices and absinthe (which was served every weekend at the group’s longtime Circle Bar residency).

Shipwrecked opens with “Carnival Ride,” the type of ghostly waltz music that finds its way into all of the rest of the album’s songs. The downtown New Orleans “gypsy” rhythm—oom-pa-pa, oom- pa-pa, oom-pa-pa—is employed often throughout the record, but with a decidedly more gothic sheen and classical bent than our city’s musical “traveling people.” On “Carnival Ride,” the ethereal vocals of Anastacia Ternasky and Laura Laws wash away on a sea of reverb that seamlessly transforms into airy pipe organ. “Staircase,” with its breathy refrain of “Am I going crazy?” reminds one of olde tyme mental institutions at which rests are permanent. You almost expect to read Jack the Ripper thanked in the liner notes for “Mr. Murder,” while “Vincent” is an ode to the beautiful madness of the painter Van Gogh, whose ear sometimes makes a physical appearance, wrapped in a napkin, at Morella’s dramatic but lighthearted live shows.

“Vincent” also shows off Eric Laws’ piano playing, which provides the heart, soul and spine of the entire record. On “Things,” Laws takes a turn at sleepy singing between 3/4 instrumental passages featuring impressive but not gratuitous classical flourishes.

The production, it must also be said, is flawless. But the style never really fluctuates, so if you don’t like dramatic, gothic tales of madness and intrigue set to carnival waltzes (not of the Mardi Gras variety) all fueled by operatic female vocals and great piano playing, then move along. But if you do, then step right up to The Wheels of If!