With a shtick that includes plenty of pole-dancing women on stage and self-aggrandizing pronouncements, it's tough to use the word "mature" in a sentence involving Detroit performer Kid Rock [ tickets ].

But Rock's latest effort, "Rock N Roll Jesus," is just that. The acoustic-based "Amen" is a heart-breaking tale tackling weighty topics like dying soldiers and starving children. "Damn it," he shouts in the hit-apparent. "I'm scared to send my children to church." The song--on which he's augmented by a gospel choir--instantly creeps into the listener's brain and makes its home there.

Rock, who famously or infamously married Pamela Anderson only to divorce her a few months later, shows his contemplative side in "All Summer Long," which mashes the piano line from "Werewolves of London" with the guitar licks and lyrics of "Sweet Home Alabama." On it, he sings of a 1989 trip to Northern Michigan where he fell in love with a 17 year old when things were simple; before the Internet.

Don't worry, Kid Rock hasn't totally eschewed his past. He hosts a "rock revival"--complete with sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll--on the title track, which serves as the set's opening number. The first single, "So Hott," will inevitably end up as background music at a strip joint, but the electric guitar-driven piece is the weakest song of the collection with laughable lyrics like, "You got a body like the devil and you smell like sex." The foot-stompin', country-based "Half Your Age" is a purposely humorous--yet a questionable jab at Anderson: "She's half your age/and twice as hot."

To come clean, this reviewer is from Detroit, where it's basically a requirement to worship Kid Rock and the Detroit Red Wings. However, the Red Wings didn't sell out this year's home opener, and Kid Rock is playing clubs these days. Some question if this album will sell outside of his hometown. It'd be a shame if it didn't.

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