1. Badge And A Gun
2. In The City
3. You Belong To Me
4. Mrs. Operator
5. Higher & Higher
6. Too Much
7. Fortune & Fame
8. Superman
9. You
10. Champagne, Chicks & Rock N' Roll

Upon Sandy's recommendation, I checked out Mama Kin's In The City, and it took me quite some time to figure this one out.

A wave of impressions came over me over the course of a week and more, forcing me to change my opinion again and again on this band. Talk about having the songs grow on you...

What I first noticed, was the great similarities between singer Ward's voice and the voice of Paul Stanley. This sort of stuck with me the first few listens, and pushed the music to the background.

After that, the music started seeping through the vocals and I had to change my opinion for the first time. Mama Kin sounds mature and worked-on, although a large part of the "city" feel remains intact. This ain't Dream Theater, but there's been a huge effort to the sound they recorded, that's for sure.

Fearing that the lyrics would follow the maturity of the music, I started reading the booklet with the fear of finding boring love stories only. Surprisingly, the album title covers the general theme of the disc.

What starts out as a melodic entry to the story, "Badge And A Gun" tells of problems with the law without coming off as adolescent anger. Storytelling reigns over oneliners in these lyrics.

Following with the great anthem "In The City", which contains one of the catchiest choruses I've heard in hard rock so far, continuing the tale of city duality: living free, in misery.

On we go to love songs "You Belong To Me" and "Mrs. Operator", followed by another batch of unique melodic rockers.

Songs to check out: "Fortune & Fame", "Higher & Higher", "Too Much" and the awesome "Champagne, Chicks & Rock N' Roll".