Kid Rock KID ROCK (Atlantic)

For a dude who’s sold almost 20 million albums over the past five years, Kid Rock has a hell of a time getting on the radio. His 2001 Cocky languished for a year before the country-tinged masterpiece "Picture" went Top 40, and the current Kid Rock has also been slow out of the gate. So far, the closest thing it has to a hit is "Jackson, Mississippi," which recycles the mega-grunge bluster of his first Atlantic single, "I Am the Bullgod." Kid’s beloved Twisted Brown Trucker Band lay down a seething groove, and the singer makes a hazy, hungover confession: "I could say I’m trying to change, but that’s just another lie."

An amped-up cover of Bad Company’s "Feel like Makin’ Love" has also garnered some airplay, but there’s still plenty of twang for "Picture" fans. The folksy Kenny Chesney collaboration "Cold and Empty" is mellow gold; Hank Williams Jr. tears it up on "Cadillac Pussy"; and the piano ballad "Do It for You" finds the American Bad-Ass at his most sensitive. On the honky-tonkin’ Sheryl Crow duet "Run Off to LA," a holdover from the Cocky sessions, Kid says goodbye to his "high maintenance" woman and salutes "the 40-hour-overtime-workin’ man" who got him where he is today.

(Kid Rock performs this Saturday, July 3, at the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire; call 603-644-5000.)