In that great expanse of whatever happens between the American north and the American south, there must be more than corn, cacti, and coyotes. There must be desperation, and discovery, which talk universally to any man.

The sharing of that spiritual zone must be how, on ‘New Local’, a band as northern as Chicago’s Filligar sound like a band as southern as Kings of Leon; the word ‘way’ squirming out of vocalist Johnny Mathias in a little deoxygenated yelp like Caleb Followill.

Filligar paint a mystical landscape without any road-trip sentimentalism; not even the wailing harmonica, plonked atop the rollicking indie like a cowboy hat on a hipster.