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A born storyteller with a gift for heart-wrenching confessionals and rootsy anthems of a generation adrift, Kacy Crowley stands out like a sunflower among today’s crop of female singer/songwriters. With her husky honeyed vocals and her band’s soulful and edgy accompaniment, the songs on her Atlantic debut, “ANCHORLESS,” offer brutally candid glimpses into Crowley’s compelling, hard-fought worldview. As the title suggests, Crowley was born with the proverbial itchy foot, a veritable traveling jones. “I get deeply attached to things,” she says, “but sometimes I really wish that I could run away. So I’ve moved around a lot. I’ve lived a lot of life.”

In its cutting and plaintive songs, grounded by an intense and poignant intimacy, “ANCHORLESS” chronicles Kacy’s walk along the hard road. Though the record’s first single, “Hand To Mouthville” offers a bit of life-affirming light, songs such as the startlingly autobiographical “Rebellious” are more rockin’ than most of today’s acoustic-based singer/songwriters. Touched with a sense of lived-through-this veracity, the intimate memoir of “ANCHORLESS” captures an artist who refuses to stand still, for whom forward motion is everything.

“It means so many different things to me, I can hardly explain it,” Kacy Crowley says. “But it’s definitely about drifting. It’s about letting go of your attachment to people, places and things. Sometimes that can be a really lonely place, but sometimes it can be a really free, wonderful place to be.”