by Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr.There's an offbeat, off-the-cuff quality that makes Amy LaVere's Anchors & Anvils easy to like. First, there's the choice of songs, like the opener, "Killing Him," with LaVere sweetly singing that killing a love interest isn't enough to make the love go away. This, of course, wouldn't be very funny if a man sang it, but LaVere's straight reading and the melancholy fiddle accompaniment find the right balance. Paul Taylor's "Pointless Drinking" falls into a similar groove, a funny-sad song married to a '50s-style melody. The simple arrangements add to the album's left-of-center appeal, with steel guitars, fiddles, and guitars whipping up a lazy mixture that falls somewhere between old rock and country with perhaps a touch of jazz thrown in. At one moment, LaVere and company cover Tex-Mex ("Overcome"), the next, funky rock ("People Get Mad"). Even on a fairly straightforward song like "That Beat," the band brings a carefree joy that commingles well with LaVere's torch singer vocal. Unlike many singer/songwriters, LaVere has pulled good songs from a variety of sources, and even when she borrows a song from a familiar figure like Bob Dylan, she borrows one of his lesser-known songs ("I'll Remember You"). Anchors & Anvils' off-the-cuff qualities help separate the album from run-of-the-mill singer/songwriter product, and because of this, make LaVere more appealing than the average singer/songwriter.