Kid Rock: Sweet Southern Sugar
Kid Rock
Sweet Southern Sugar
(BMG Rights Management)
Sweet Southern Sugar is Kid Rock’s first album made in Nashville, and his first with new label BMG/Broken Bow Records, but it’s that Kid Rock mélange of styles we are used to.
“Greatest Show on Earth,” opens, we get some moans and synths then the snapping drums and main riff gets up and running, very much like what we have heard from Kid before. There’s ballsy bio boasting, singable anthem choruses, and a party sounding band behind him. “Tennessee Mountain Top,” is a heavy, growly bass, mid-tempo rocker, with Rock expounding on his less-than-substantive time in L.A. The organ that slips in and out here, again with another wonderful singable chorus, hand claps and synth lead, make this a perfect lead-off single.
“I Wonder,” features a blippy sound and funky guitar, with Rock wondering about a past love. Rockin’ guitar comes in here but never eases the pain, as Kid manages his highest screams. A cool, flicky, acoustic slips under the first real rap here, “Back To The Otherside,” while “Stand The Pain,” is another anthem, this one made around a roiling piano, and the players behind what might be Kid Rock’s most passionate vocals on Sweet Southern Sugar.
“Grandpa’s Jam,” is the best example of rock and rap, what we are most familiar with from this kid, and ends the album.
The cover of “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch),” probably the most intriguing tune here, is a softer read of the Four Tops classic, featuring picked electric guitar, conga, and big fat bass.
Sweet Southern Sugar moves along fine, it might not be Kid Rock’s heaviest or nastiest bunch of tunes, but they are finely crafted and well played and it seems as if the kid is sincere in all he is telling us about.