Don’t Need a Suit, You Don’t Need a Bible

Of all the rap-rockers of the late nineties, Kid Rock sucked the least. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Rock didn’t just pseudo-rap over loud guitars, he made sure all his influences, which he wore on his sleeve and routinely name dropped in songs, came thru from Run-DMC to Metallica to Hank Williams Jr. to fellow Detroiter Bob Seger. But the former Bob Ritchie has been more tabloid fodder than rock star thanks to the women he like to keep company, most notable the a couple month long marriage to Pamela Anderson.

With Anderson out of the picture (aside from a run in with her and her ex-husband at the Video Music Awards), Kid Rock is back to music with Rock n Roll Jesus. But Anderson isn’t completely forgotten as the line, “she’s half your age but twice as hot” seems like a not so thinly veiled reference to the former playmate who is currently on the wrong side of forty. Rounding out the final two country themed tracks is Lowlife (Living the Highlife) a song that could be a pot show at fellow Pam ex, Tommy Lee or possible just a tongue in check song about himself, with Kid Rock you really don’t know.

The rest of the album is still pretty eclectic as you get you share of rock anthems, some rapping, a couple of power ballads and Rock dips even further into his influence pool for the delta blues themed New Orleans. But like his most recent albums, the rock tracks just sound like retreads of past songs. The first single So Hott sounds like an homage to rock excess kings AC/DC (the cover art also conspicuously looks like Back in Black) but certainly Angus and the boys could have come up with a catchy chorus.

Speaking of retreads, that is nowhere more apparent, and this time intentional, than on Rock’s ode to the simpler times in one’s youth on All Summer Long which heavily borrows the piano chords from Werewolves of London that morphs into Sweet Home Alabama. This is a neat trick, but the song doesn’t really hold up to multiple listens. But Amen more than lives up to more than one spins. The acoustic gospel tune (no, seriously, Rock does a gospel song and does it well) takes aim at corrupt government and corporations, as well as the lazy, uninvolved and the ignorant. Yeah, Rock may not be the most moral person in the world, but when a song is this good, sometimes you don’t mind the blind preaching.

Song to Download - Amen (Kid Rock is still holding his catalogue off iTunes)

Rock n Roll Jesus gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.