You wouldn't expect the man behind Sling Blade to turn out a pedestrian album, but Billy Bob Thornton's country debut turns out to be surprising both for its risks and for its routine. To his credit, Thornton, with Marty Stuart producing, bypasses radio formula for a different kind of connection with his listener, veering from lengthy spoken verse to retro hillbilly deluxe. But does the listener want to hear what he has to say? In the opening song, "Dark and Mad," Thornton seems to telegraph the brooding danger of his most famous film role. Yet almost immediately he gets lost in ruminations so personal that he almost forgets there's an audience waiting to be involved. Past the kinky charm of "Forever," a bluesy, one-way telephone conversation in which he tells his main squeeze he's wearing the feathered pink panties she left in his car, there's a love song to his wife that's 180 degrees from passion, a revamped salute to John F. Kennedy, and a nine-and-a-half-minute piece of theatrical Southern gothic about witnessing a disturbing sexual encounter as a child. It's a weird trip, and totally unfocused, as if he just recorded whatever came into his head. But there's no denying Thornton's out-there charisma or the croaky appeal of his Arkansas twang. --Alanna Nash
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