Usually when an act starts singing a blues-funk song about how much they love étouffée, they’re not doing much more than creating a bit of merch for Crescent City tourists to take home—and there’s nothing wrong with that. Not everybody gets to have as much New Orleans as they want all the time. And if a few songs can trigger some good memories in the midst of their suburban zombiehood, so much the better.

Spike Sikes, however, is sort of a tourist himself, an El Paso native and Coast Guard vet who has finally found a place to settle down. Not by any means an unusual story. But even though he’s making his home in California now, when he sings about New Orleans, he sounds like he feels at home here, too: He recorded most of these songs in the Marigny, after all. And a genuine feeling of putting down roots after a long period of roaming pervades the entirety of his third CD. That opening cut, “Ain’t Nobody Got Nothing on New Orleans,” turns out to be something of a red herring; most of the time, he’s crafting an elegant sort of country-soul not unlike the kind found on history’s greatest ode to hearth and home, Van Morrison’s Tupelo Honey album.

He doesn’t reach that level of transcendence—not many do—but the mood is definitely there, a real warmth that makes even simple phrases like “Having a cold Coca-Cola” or “Nothin’ will do like hot chicken soup” seem filled with import. This holds true even when the band is opening up like classic Dr. John on “New Orleans,” conjuring up a shanty on “By the Sea” or indulging in a little trad jazz on the steps of “Buddy Bolden’s House.” Has this wanderer really figured out what “it” means? It certainly sounds like it. When he travels these days, it’s mostly musical. And he doesn’t have to stray very far.