As singer, songwriter and bassist for New Jersey combo The Black Hollies, Justin Angelo Morey is a seriously styled musician. Since first emerging in 2004, Morey and company have been affectionately mining the music of the '60s Nuggets scene, with a period-perfect look, sound and feel.

Vince Keng

The Black Hollies will release its third full-length album this fall. "It's the closest to the way I've always been hearing things in my head," says Justin Angelo Morey.

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But when Morey's not on the road or in the studio conjuring his musical confections, he's at work, making the real thing. "I work for chocolate company, believe it or not," says Morey of his day job with Al Richard's Homemade Chocolates in Bayonne.

"I've been doing that since I was 19. Originally, I took the job so I could buy records and clothes and instruments," he says. "But after doing it for so long I ended up learning how to temper chocolate, and how to do this and that. I really like that I can be creative in that sort of environment. And the fact that they're cool enough to let me do what I need with the band."

The Black Hollies -- which features Morey, guitarist Herbert Joseph Wiley V, organist/guitarist Jon Gonnelli and drummer Nicholas Ferrante -- will kick off the second leg of its summer tour in Memphis. The band plays the Buccaneer on Thursday with locals Bulletproof Vests.

Beyond his candy-related creativity, Morey has been busy on the musical front as well. Last month, The Black Hollies released a new single, "Gloomy Monday Morning." The track was inspired after Morey heard a rare pre-Stax-era cut by the Luther Ingram Orchestra.

"I was listening to a Northern Soul compilation and this song came on, and it blew my mind. It served as a catalyst for the writing," says Morey. "My heart is really into those kinds of soul sounds. I've been obsessed with that stuff forever. Once you get deep into that, you can't escape it."

The new single is just a precursor to the band's third full-length album -- following 2005's Crimson Reflections and 2008's Casting Shadows -- which will be released this fall.

"It's the closest to the way I've always been hearing things in my head," says Morey of the forthcoming disc, Softly Towards The Light.

Recorded on small budget at a Hoboken studio loaded with vintage gear and instruments -- "two-inch tape, actual Mellotron and vibraphone and Hammond B-3" -- Morey says the old-school approach presented a unique set of challenges.

"Take something like a Mellotron: it's such a primitive piece of gear. It's doesn't always work the way you want it to. It's a temperamental sort of thing. If you held the keys down too hard, it wouldn't work. If you did it too light, it wouldn't work. Or it would cut out. On the record you can actually hear notes decaying and fading out. You really have to be in the zone or in the element to execute it flawlessly. It was definitely a physical challenge."

For Morey, the new album represents another major step in The Black Hollies' evolution.

"We started out like any band starts out: just a bunch of friends trying to replicate the stuff they liked," says Morey. " The first record was a learning experience. We just went in and played and tried to get some really good grooves down. With the second album, I was trying to have some growth in my songwriting. But with the new record, it was about letting things come out naturally, and just finding good arrangement that served the songs."

Although the band has generated some good press (in Rolling Stone, among other outlets) Morey knows that raising the still relatively fledgling group's profile requires more a continuous effort.

"There's so much music out there, so many bands," he says. "And we're still trying to build that following. We haven't been around that long, so it's all a work in progress."

The Black Hollies, Bulletproof Vests

10 p.m. July 9 at The Buccaneer, 1368 Monroe. Cover is $5. For more information, call 278-0909.