What comes as a surprise, however, is when the land that breeds tumbleweeds, cotton and redneck Red Raiders also sprouts a band of rare cerebral depth combined with salt-of-the-earth genuineness. Lubbock's Thrift Store Cowboys are that band, as comfortable in an indie club as a honky-tonk, edgy yet traditional. Call it experimental country. Take the band's "Dirtied Your Knees," off their latest album, Lay Low While Crawling or Creeping, which kicks off with a drone-y banjo hum underlying the minimal plucking of another banjo. The effect is something like an orchestra warming up, until the tune eases its way into a rootsy midtempo rocker. "Sidewalk Song," meantime, evokes Mazzy Star as much as Merle Haggard, with its slow 3/4 time, luscious fiddle and high-gain, delayed guitar—proof there's more to Lubbock than dust devils and Bobby Knight.