Roll

1	I Want You Back
2	Nobody’s Sleeping
3	Stupid
4	Crazy Beautiful Child
5	Hangman
6	50 Dollar Whore
7	Tiny Little Song
8	Milkman’s Daughter
9	Roll
10	Gandhi
11	Where Darkness Grows
12	Ballad of an Outlaw Woman
13	Machine Gun

Barnes & Noble

A newcomer from Down Under, singer-songwriter Anne McCue makes an auspicious debut with the gripping Roll. While the heavy twang and sludgy sound recall Kim Richey's early albums, McCue's sleepy drawl and cosmic ennui summon the spirit of Lucinda Williams, and the edgy rockers suggest Sheryl Crow. Among McCue's many talents is guitar playing, and her assured, lyrical style is the perfect complement to the dramas unfolding in her diary-like lyrics, which reach for such big ideas as mortality, love, and vengeance. Her six-string work also jibes easily with Roll's captivating soundscapes -- crafted by McCue and producer Dusty Wakeman -- which shapeshift from roiling guitar solos and ferocious, pounding drums at one extreme to minimalist instrumentation designed to conjure moody, foreboding mise en scenes at the other. "Hangman" gets by on little more than an insistent, burbling organ figure and McCue's bursts of electric slide, whereas the insinuating, jazzy lilt of her curling guitar figure lends "Milkman's Daughter" a light, carefree feel that's at odds with the lyrics' complex emotions. On "Ghandi," sinister, thumping drums and foreboding, piercing shards of guitar riffs propel McCue's bittersweet musings on good intentions gone horribly awry ("I wanted to be like Ghandi / but I turned out like Hitler") -- what the lyrics don't say, the music more than fills in. In an audacious move, McCue closes out the proceedings with a ferocious reading of Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun," complete with some crunching guitar work of no small moment. Roll positions McCue in the interesting niche of being both a captivating singer-songwriter probing serious personal issues and an inventive instrumentalist whose voice also demands to be heard. David McGee

Entertainment Weekly

She could do worse for role models [than Lucinda Williams... and McCue is] forging a unique voice from the influence. (B+)