THE BOXMASTERS > The Boxmasters

Billy Bob Thornton has been casting and floating his musical hooks since long before America could even consider the buzz on the stark Arkie gothic drama Slingblade, which is why the side long glances about actors being players are miscast.

Label: VANGUARD
[RATING: 3.5]

Billy Bob Thornton has been casting and floating his musical hooks since long before America could even consider the buzz on the stark Arkie gothic drama Slingblade, which is why the side long glances about actors being players are miscast. Slightly askew perhaps, yet dead-on, Thornton nails the gut Appalachian realities of his home state with a raw hillbilly vigor. Two discs-one originals with bracing titles of reckoning “Build Your Own Prison,” “2-Bit Grifter,” “The Last Place They’d Look” and “The Girl on the Side” are Tom Waits turned white trash, while the covers pays homage to tradition with “Knoxville Girl,” the Dirt Band “House at Pooh Corner” and “Some of Shelley’s Blues,” cosmic country “Propinquity,” Buck Owens-steeped Beatles “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”-establish his roots cred once and for all. With a voice like a rusty hinge, Thorton’s Boxmasters bolster and bounce like a skidrow mattress. Aqua Velva perfection.