The Claudettes, No Hotel (Yellow Dog Records)
Before this full-length album, this Chicago duo — named after a crazy Korean pseudo-manager lady who preferred to get them gigs at Blockbuster Video and Staples stores — was a Ray Charles reimagining of White Stripes, with past Otis Rush pianist Johnny Iguana hammering his keys and big-paycheck session guy Michael Caskey going nuts on a relatively sparse drum kit. The first six tunes on this record cover that setup, and then out comes their newly acquired secret weapon, mononymed singer Yana, a sexy-torchy chick with the fashion sense of True Blood’s LaFayatte, who’s upped their earning potential tenfold (she was a tenant in a building Claudette owned). Yana’s no Ella, but they get the most out of her with the help of just the right amount of reverb, not to mention a nice megaphone-patch on “She’s So Imaginary.” If you like your set-it-and-forget-it feel-good stuff to be loud but accessible, it doesn’t get much better. A — Eric W. Saeger