There’s quite a bit more rock than rap on Kid Rock’s first studio album in four years, tentatively titled “Rock’n’Roll Jesus,” which will arrive October 9. Recorded at his Michigan home, the Atlantic Records set cuts a broad stylistic swath, from metallic headbangers like first single “So Hot” and “Sugar” (the set’s only rap track) to such rootsy, gospel-hued fare as “Amen” and “When You Love Someone.”
The Motown-influenced “Roll On” rolls alongside the power ballad “Miss Understood” and the Crescent City-flavored “New Orleans” (co-written with pal David Allen Coe), while “All Summer Long” entertainingly mashes up elements of Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” — with the latter group’s Billy Powell on piano.
The album ends with “Half Your Age,” a sly country kissoff to ex-wife Pamela Anderson, with a line about finding a younger girlfriend who’s “twice as hot.”
Overall, Rock — who’s dedicating the album to his late friend, Atlantic co-founder Ahmet Ertegun — told Billboard he hoped the effect was “like going to church drunk on Saturday night.”
Rock is planning a promotional tour, including radio events and theater and club dates to promote the album, with a full-scale tour planned for 2008.
His last album, a self-titled effort, debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 in November 2003.
