The Verses is a stunning collaboration between contemporary singer/songwriter duo and siblings Ella and Jesse Hooper, formerly of multi-platinum recording act Killing Heidi. Together they have spent the past four years crafting ‘Seasons’, a mature, adventurous and personal record of warm roots rock and alt-country balladry that is inspired by the music they grew up with.

February 2010. Ella and Jesse Hooper are in a Los Angeles recording studio. Mitchell Froom (Crowded House, Paul McCartney, Latin Playboys) is behind the desk. Elvis Costello's rhythm section holds the backbeat. Jackson Browne's guitarist squeezes a sweet melodic counterpoint.

The brother and sister from Violet Town in rural Victoria exchange a slightly gobsmacked glance over their instruments. It's a look that says something like this: "How the hell did we get HERE?"

The short answer is they wrote some songs. Some killer songs: heartfelt sentiments stuck to tunes that creep under your skin. That's been their forte since they were teenagers finding their own radio-bound pop chemistry from in between their parents' record collections and the modern rock airwaves.

Killing Heidi, you may recall, was THE multi-platinum, ARIA-winning pop-rock sensation of the early 2000s. But these are new songs for new days. The Verses, says Ella, is "a totally different thing. It's such an evolution that I feel like another person entirely."

She sounds like one too. From the first, assured lines of Still Come Around, there's a deeper resonance to her tone, a more knowing ring to her stories. Then again, there's a familiar energy to Jesse's chords: a craft that reminds us this new moment was born of untold gigs and countless songs past.

"After the third Killing Heidi album (in 2004), we spent the next two-and-a-half years writing," he says. "For the first batch of songs we were just as duo, then we tried a more folky thing, a bigger band . . . it was a time of transition."

"We wanted to muck around with style and format," adds Ella, "breaking it down to guitar and vocals, building it up to a six-piece outfit. We tried on a lot of shoes until we found the ones that felt right."

The Verses had around a hundred songs by the time they narrowed a hubbub of label interest down to Warner Music in 2009. They'd played them in pubs, at Days on the Green; on medium-stage supports with Counting Crows and massive ones with Fleetwood Mac in December ‘09.

It was around then that 30 of the best reached the discerning ears of Mitchell Froom, the great American producer whose back pages with Suzanne Vega, Elvis Costello, various Finns and countless others comprises a whole chapter in the big book of popular song.

"It was a bit of a dream," says Ella. "He's made some records that I just love, like Richard Thompson's Rumor and Sigh; I love Ron Sexsmith, Crowded House . . . I kept flipping over my favourite records and there he was."

Over a few phone calls, mutual intrigue was established and musical touchstones canvassed: the sun-drenched melancholy of Fleetwood Mac, the cool exuberance of Tom Petty, the crisp air of Nashville, the subtle folk-rock embellishments of The Faces . . .

"I think you should make something that is as classic as you can make it," the producer told the songwriters. "Your strength is your more heartfelt songs, your story songs. I love the songs where you’re not trying too hard."

Part of Froom's ethos was immediacy. Three takes. A few vocal passes. Move on. "I want to do this raw," he said. "I don't want to kill it with overproduction or over-performances. I want a very live feeling."

Enter the dream band . . .

"We were very lucky because Mitchell knows some dudes," Jesse laughs. "Pete Thomas (drums) and Davey Farragher (bass) play with Elvis Costello but they also have their own band with Val McCallum (guitar), so we had this ready-made trio that can handle anything."

The Verses landed in Santa Monica on a Friday in January and hit the studio — a four-car garage that once housed Brian Setzer's hotrod collection — on the Saturday. "The brief was 'You are our band'," says Ella, "'This is not a session. Just relax and do what you do' — which gave them the opportunity to let plenty of themselves into it. It felt very natural very quickly."

Over eight intense but playful weeks, the close-knit party of six found an elusive groove often described by Led Zeppelin aficionados as "tight but loose": the sound of crack musos at perfect ease with each other and the ever-evolving material.

The hard graft resulted in the duo’s debut album Seasons, an accomplished collection of warm roots rock and homely alt-country balladry whose songs are equally steeped in vulnerability and resilience. From the radio ready Want Everything – an ode to longing that sounds like a Rumors-era Fleetwood Mac outtake – to the vocal acrobatics and slide guitar of album highlight Never Knew, it’s clear the Hooper siblings haven’t lost their knack for a killer melody.

Of Seasons many highlights - the tender regret of Let You (w)in , the sexual aggression of Teeth – the penultimate moment may be The Winter, a heartfelt ode to the duo’s hometown and family that puts on full display the duo’s impressive growth as songwriters. As Ella sings of leaving “the city for the homeland” and implores someone to “Tell my family not to miss me / if I go chasing another season”, it’s obvious Ella and Jesse have gone full circle and found the heart of their formidable songwriting talent back where it all began: home.

"To me, the album is about journey," says Ella. "In my mind, there's this character, a girl who's breaking away from her past, going from the country to the city, falling in love, getting into scrapes . . . Seasons is a metaphor for that cycle. You have good times, hard times, then you're reborn."

So any resemblance to any person living or dead . . . ?

"Complete fiction," she says.

Seasons will be released by Warner Music Australia on 13 August.