Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 03/07/2006
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
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