When Third Day’s newest project kicks off with vocalist Mac Powell declaring “I’m the son of a good man/I’m the child of an angel,” you don’t get the sense the statement is necessarily autobiographical. It’s personal yet universal; a reflection of man’s never-ending search for his identity.
That thread of searching for definition plays throughout 'Revelation', the veteran Atlantabased band’s 11th studio album. Mac Powell and his longtime bandmates - guitarist Mark Lee, bassist Tai Anderson and drummer David Carr - have created for their latest album a muscular sound, strung taut with hooks and hat-tips to its Southern-rock infl uences, but also a real, palpable vulnerability in both song matter and performance.
“As we mature in our faith, we come to a point where we realise that everything is not black and white. The older you get, the more questions you have,” Powell says. “The point is that it’s okay that we don’t have all the answers - but we know the One who does.”
This album has a bigger, more polished and yet edgier musical stance,with lyrics designed to relate to a broad swath of the human and Christian experience. “So many Christians have a story of being lost, experiencing Christ and then their lives are all better. But for the ones who were brought up in Christian homes or who have been Christians for most of their lives, are they supposed to have it all together?” Anderson asks. “These songs are for people who are walking through something, right now. They add a tension that can only be found in our daily experience”
