31st October, 2008

JUSTIN MICHAEL

Album: Revelation

Artist: Third Day

Year: 2008
Label: Sony
Web: www.thirdday.com
 
In A Word: Grandstand-PlayStation-rock (still believin' that f it's hyphenated, it's one word!)

"The biggest challenge to a band of Third Day's stature is simply to live up to themselves each time they deliver a new disc. Due to this Revelation, they're taller now."

Bring the southern rock! Think that's all we need to say when Mac Powell dons the flannelette shirt and sings through a beard that would be at home as much behind the flared handle bars of a Harley as it is behind the mike of Christian music's biggest band.

Coming off the back of the two Chronology double albums, Third Day deliver again with Revelation. There's something brilliantly uncomplicated about the tunes these guys have been churning out since the days of Consuming Fire back in the nineties.

Revelation kicks into high gear with the opening cut This Is Who I Am. "I'm the son of a good man / I'm the child of an angel / I'm the brother of a wild one / and I'm looking for direction'. It's a two minute rock autobiography that says 'this is who I am / so take me and make me someone / better than before."

Call My Name delivers one of the band's great strengths; bringing songs of hope sans corny cliché. Yes, you've heard lyrics like these before - and I do have to deduct points for rhyming 'sadness' with 'madness' - but by the end of the four minutes there's no doubt punters will be encouraged stating, "The love I have for you is so alive / you just call my name.' Other songs in the same lyric category include Let Me Love You and the banjo strollin' Give Love."

Guest female vocals on Run To You and Born Again come courtesy of the amazing Lacey Mosley of Flyleaf. Her voice is not dissimilar to Plumb but with a that throaty rock vibe and the combination of Powell and Mosley is a sonic thing of beauty.

My guess for the crowd favourite for sing-along of the album would be Born Again - "It feels like I'm born again / it feels it like living / for the very first time". With a stunning guest vocal this will have you swaying back 'n forth and singing the chorus to your mates without even noticing.

Musically, the stand-out is the way the guitar solos sparkle. It's safe to say that the guitar solo is certainly on the way back (probably more due to PlayStation games than anything else) and on tunes like Call My Name, Other Side (combine Kravitz with Diesel) and Run To You the songs lift brilliantly.

The biggest challenge to a band of Third Day's stature is simply to live up to themselves each time they deliver a new disc.

Due to this Revelation, they're taller now.