Author: Werner Trieschmann

The general derision and skepticism that come with each release of a new CD by a movie star is about as commonplace and expected as liner notes. That built-in dismissal would seem unfair until, say, you sit down and listen to Scarlett Johansson try to sing Tom Waits songs. Then it just makes sense.

Billy Bob Thornton is not only a movie star; he’s an Oscar-winning hyphenate — actor-director-writer-musician. As a musician, Thornton isn’t a gadfly. In his pre-celebrity years, he was part of numerous bands, including a ZZ Top cover act. Since he’s become part of the Hollywood establishment, he’s released four solo albums — the last, Beautiful Door, came out last year.

Those albums are generally forgettable when they aren’t achingly awful. Thornton’s scratchy, twangy baritone might make him stand out in films, but on record it comes across as smug. That his backing band is playing unfocused, warmed-over ’70s arena rock doesn’t help matters either.

All of that makes The Boxmasters a doubly sweet surprise. Thornton teams up with J.D. Andrew and Michael Butler (and a lot of others on record and in the live show) for music that’s a mixture of straight-ahead rock and country touchstones such as Johnny Cash and Buck Owens. As part of the concept, the band wears striking black and white suits and has short-cropped hair. Thornton says in the liner notes, “I finally figured out what my style is — and it’s this.”

He’s right. The Boxmasters is a double-CD set (neatly packaged in a box, of course) with one disc of originals (“Ours”) and one of covers (“Theirs”). Thornton’s songs fit squarely in the country tradition in that they are packed with sharply observed details and are often funny. “Watching the Game,” where a poor husband just wants some peace while the Cardinals are on, is too true. The cover of “House at Pooh Corner” — yes, the Winnie the Pooh song — will not only make you laugh, but it’s also sweet and endearing.

Somehow the band’s chug-chug rhythm and frequent use of pedal steel frame Thornton’s voice in a way that greatly cuts the smugness. Also, Thornton steps aside here and there to let his crack band play. (It should be noted that on the record Thornton plays drums and tambourine.)

The Boxmasters is in no way perfect, but it’s so far ahead of Thornton’s past work and other movie-star records, it deserves honest and heartfelt accolades — not to mention an audience. — Werner Trieschmann

Grade: B+

Billy Bob Thornton and the Boxmasters play the Hi-Tone Café Wednesday, August 6th. Doors open at 9 p.m. Admission is $20.

You don’t have to believe the hippy-dippy crap about “old souls” to wonder if the bearded young men from Seattle that lead the brand-new band Fleet Foxes aren’t channeling some kind of ancient musical sage — like maybe early Neil Young or his sometime partners Crosby, Stills & Nash. The comparisons could continue — Mamas & Papas, anybody? — but they aren’t really fair and should not come without a qualification, i.e., Fleet Foxes have released one of the best albums of the year.

What might trip people up is that while the instruments employed are traditional in rock and folk — acoustic and electric guitar, banjo, piano, tambourine, lots of tom drums — the emphasis is on voices. The band calls its music “baroque harmonic pop jams,” and, outside of top-flight choral competitions, it’s not likely that you’ve heard harmonies soar like they do on Fleet Foxes. Lead singer Robin Pecknold is practically mystical in the way his voice — so huge and yet controlled — finds a way to pierce your heart.

In many respects, Pecknold and his pals reject the shaggy, psychedelic aspect that marked the recent freak-folk movement. These songs are put together with a professional sheen and construction that’s anything but loose. It makes for drama on a grand scale. Listen to the way the held-back instruments burst open and mimic a bright sunrise on the opening track, “Sun It Rises.” The dramatic stops and starts of the heart-wrenching prodigal-son song, “He Doesn’t Know Why,” are breathtaking.

Lyrically, Fleet Foxes falls in with the folk tradition of dealing with and dwelling on nature. The sublime and ominous “White Winter Hymnal” has children — or is it birds? — marching through snow. “Meadowlarks” and “Blue Ridge Mountains” sound like they were written hundreds of years ago by writers who had never seen concrete.

Certainly some will carp that Fleet Foxes are too pristine and too clean for a rock or even a folk band. The rest of us will treat this masterly music the same way we would treat the sight of a grand cathedral of trees or a sun-drenched valley — with something close to awe. — Werner Trieschmann

Grade: A

Canadian singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards is now three albums into her career, and reviewers are finally getting around to comparing her to Neil Young. This is after tossing her in the alternative country pen and saying that she was Ottawa’s version of Lucinda Williams. Whatever country strains surfaced in her 2003 debut, Failer, are gone in Asking for Flowers, a straightforward rock album that is more Young and Bruce Springsteen than Merle Haggard.

The signature songs on Edwards’ last album, Back to Me (“Old Time Sake” and “Summerlong” ) were two huge ballads that stretched out to forever and summoned up acres of ache. On Asking for Flowers, Edwards is both angrier and funnier than she’s demonstrated before. She relaxes too much toward the end, but she gets off several memorable shots before then.

The best is “The Cheapest Key,” a song with energy and sass to spare, not to mention a memorable harmonica run. On the marvelously constructed title track, Edwards’ penchant for blunt lyrics is used to great effect: “Asking for flowers/Is like asking you to be nice/Tell me you’re too tired/Ten years I’ve been working nights.” “Buffalo,” which floats on a bed of understated strings, is another wintry ballad that sneaks up on you after a number of plays.

Edwards directs her ire at the U.S. on “Oil Man’s War” and laments a murder in her native land in the Neil Young-like “O Canada.” Her “I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory” is a rare novelty number, and you know it is because she mentions hockey stars in it. The arresting acoustic “Sure as S**t” is the quietest number on the record and shows off Edwards’ vulnerable side.

What keeps you listening even during slow patches like the last track, “Goodnight, California,” which stretches out past the six-minute mark, is Edwards’ voice. Nobody would mistake her for a conventionally pretty vocalist, but she has rock-and-roll pipes — she cuts through the noise and grabs your attention. On Asking for Flowers, more often than not, she makes it a worthwhile exercise.

— Werner Trieschmann

Grade: B+

Life is way too short to worry about soundtracks. Like 90 percent of live albums, the comedy of Carlos Mencia, and the Electoral College, they suck. Except when they don’t. Music from the Motion Picture Juno does not suck at all. It’s actually fairly terrific from beginning to end, in no small part because it features seven songs by the antifolk, ex-Moldy Peach Kimya Dawson. As Juno the soundtrack has followed Juno the film into becoming a hit, Dawson has become one of the most unlikely recording stars in many a year.

Why? Well, Dawson’s songs — often plunked out in a rudimentary way on an acoustic guitar — are delivered in a childlike voice that can be charitably called weak. When Dawson was paired with partner Adam Green in the Moldy Peaches, the duo put out one eponymous album on Rough Trade in 2001. It got a lot of critical love and had the misfortune of being released right around the September 11th attacks and to include the pre-9/11 written tune “NYC Is a Graveyard.” (Did I mention that Dawson sometimes performs in a bunny costume and has an Afro the size of a beach ball?)

Green and Dawson have since gone their separate ways, releasing solo albums to less and less fanfare. The Juno soundtrack culls several numbers from Dawson’s 2006 Remember That I Love You. “Tire Swing” and “Loose Lips” have the pared-down sound of the Moldy Peaches with the incredible lyrics that are the reason Dawson was invited to this Hollywood party.

Dawson is singular in her ability to be funny, vulnerable, raw, and childlike in the span of a few verses. “If I am a spinster for the rest of my life/My arms will keep warm on cold and lonely nights” she tosses out toward the end of the heartbreaking “Tire Swing.”

Other artists that come along with Dawson for the Juno ride include Sonic Youth with their deliciously spacey cover of the Carpenters’ “Superstar” and Mott the Hoople via their indestructible glam kiss “All the Young Dudes.” But this is Dawson’s show, and, taken as a whole, the soundtrack for a movie about a precocious adolescent who learns to cope with the horrible, awesome, funny, life-changing event of pregnancy couldn’t have a more apt voice. — Werner Trieschmann

Grade: A-