Rees' first international release, produced by long time Joe Jackson drummer (and Shad mentor) Gary Burke, who joins rees playing along with Rich Syracuse on upright bass and a host of other amazing talents.  The Boston Herald called Anderson, Ohio "A minor American masterpiece."
 
Matt Weitz' Review for this album from the Dallas Observer read as follows:
 
"States with a certain mythology--Texas and California (heck, even Florida)--are easy to write and sing about; the big themes are laid out right in front of you. It is far harder to capture the feel of life in one of the more anonymous states, but Rees Shad has done the best job since John Mellencamp's Blood on the Scarecrow of evoking life in the Midwest--a region that went from raw frontier to Rust Belt in less than 300 years. Inspired by Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, Shad created a series of vignettes--the family farm on the block, a man who strangles his strung-out love--that might at first glance seem unconnected but, like Winesburg, gradually emerge as threads in a broader tapestry.
Liken it to Counting Crows without Adam Durwitz, his silly hair or obtrusive smugness, but it's really unfair to describe this work in terms of another--it's that personal, that complete, and that well-done. Shad has an expressive voice that bends around the emotions of a song while aural textures change from the gray foreboding of a sky about to snow to the ruddy light of a neighborhood bar. The album's high point is "Hero's Son," a moving tale of a draft dodger's reconciliation with his family that features Guy Clark and Graham Parker; guess they know a good thing when they see (or hear) one."