With Anonymous, his third disc, Kieran McGee shakes off the teen prodigy shackles and steps up as a fully realized artist. Though he's captured on the cover still looking very much like the skinny 15 year old who wowed the -No Depression crowd with his 1997 release Left for Dead, a close listen yields a lesson in alt-country progression; in McGee's case it's in a Rolling Stones-the Band direction. Musical leaps like Odessa and Quiet are notable for their languid bite, and more than one track shiftily calls to mind Jerry Garcia in his banjo-picking, Old and in the Way incarnation. Wilco and Ryan Adams also might have been spinning in McGee's CD changer -- or at least in his head -- as he entered the studio. Inspired songwriting (sample lyric: "Hope is a hungry game we play/We lose it every time that we wish for something we can't have") and bump-free vocals aside, though, McGee can't claim sole credit for the unassailably done-right sound of Anonymous. Helping on songs throughout the 13-song disc are Ollabelle's Amy Helm; her father, the legendary Levon Helm; and Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley. ~ Tammy La Gorce, Rovi

1		Faithless
2		Good Enough
3		Odessa
4		Waiting for a Friend
5		Don't Lie Down
6		I Guess I Lied Again
7		Losing You Again
8		Lonesome Road
9		Quiet
10		The Second Time
11		Hope
12		Big Surprise
13		Anonymous