Huck Johns

When Kid Rock sang that you'll never meet a "m*********** quite like me," he apparently had not yet met Huck Johns. Another native of Detroit, Johns serves up a mix of hard rock and hip-hop, country, and classic rock on his 2006 debut, Huck, that's a dead-ringer for Kid, right down to the raspy delivery and a Bob Seger cover. There are few characteristics that separate Johns from Rock. For one, he can mimic the Black Crowes with startling acumen, as he does on "Answer," one of the album's undeniable highlights. He can also execute pure meathead alt-metal quite effectively, as he does on "Kill Everything," one of the album's lowlights. But for the most part, Johns follows the pattern Kid Rock laid down on Devil Without a Cause and Cocky, alternately rapping to hard rock, belting out Southern rock, or crooning tear-in-yer-beer outlaw country ballads. He lacks Bob Ritchie's humor, storytelling skills, mock-ironic swagger, and white-trash sex appeal, not to mention the down-and-dirty funkiness of the Twisted Brown Trucker band, for which he substitutes flattened, grinding metallic guitars, a regular-guy-next-door voice, and an unfortunate predilection for Staind-style earnest crooning, but apart from that, Huck is a good approximation of post-Devil Kid Rock. Now, whether or not that's something that's needed is another question entirely, but for those who wanted a new Kid Rock album instead of the live album he released in 2006, this might be worth a spin. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide