Kasey Anderson"s fourth full-length album, Nowhere Nights, earned him widespread praise (Paste, Blurt, No Depression, The Onion AV Club) and comparisons to Steve Earle, Guy Clark, and Townes Van Zandt, but Anderson remained unsatisfied. Feeling boxed-in and determined to shake the "Roots Rock" tag, Anderson assembled his band, The Honkies, and recorded Heart of a Dog, a swaggering set of unabashed Rock "n" Roll. From the sinister opening riff of the opening track, The Wrong Light, to the barroom piano of the album"s plaintive closer, For Anyone, Anderson and his band shed any prior evidence of "twang" and rock, as Anderson says, "without pretense or apology."