It seems like every other album that Third Day comes out with is an attempt to re-establish their credibility as a rock band after a previous album that was much more "inspirational" or "worship"-oriented in terms of its content. This pattern goes as far back as 2001's Come Together, which was actually fairly glossy and programmed for a "rock" album, but still their first full-length studio album released since they became immensely popular for doing the "worship band" thing on 2000's Offerings. And some of it was rather satisfying on the "Southern rock" front. Then came the less-than-interesting sequel Offerings II in 2003, after which we got 2004's Wire as a sort of apology to the old-school Third Day fans - it was perhaps their first attempt to make a mainstream-friendly rock album without any obvious "worship songs" that would rack up easy #1 accolades on Christian radio. 2005's Wherever You Are vascillated back to the adult contemporary side of things, not being completely without its rockers, but certainly being designed to comfort hurting listeners more so than to make loud and proud noise with guitars. And now here we are, after a bit of a hiatus for the band, at 2008's Revelation, which the band would have you believe is a rejuvenating reinvention for them. At this point, it has to be. As popular as they are in the world of Christian music, they've really lost their credibility with a lot of their "old-school" fans, and several critics as well. The time for a comeback is now or never.

Personally, I'm casting my vote for "never". As exciting as it may have been to pop in my pre-release copy of this disc and hear a bit more twang and drawl coming from these good old Georgia boys, it wasn't long before I began to look beneath the surface and discover that the band's lyrics were perhaps the dullest that they'd ever been. Let's face it, no matter how much they might want the younger, more cutting-edge-segment of their Christian audience back, there's only so much that big, fun, meaty guitar riffs can do for you when you're just spouting off a bunch of mind-numbing inspirational cliches that seem to be designed specifically not to offend an older segment of the audience that doesn't want to think. Third Day now specializes in the illusory genre known as "adult contemporary rock" - a type of music that sounds pretty good blasting out of your speakers (thanks in no small part to uber-producer Howard Benson, whose job it is to make everything sound absolutely huge - it worked wonders for P.O.D. and it's certainly a shiny enough distraction here), but that comes up alarmingly empty when you take the time to really examine what's being said. Honestly, I don't think we've heard much of anything new from Third Day in the lyrics department for at least four years now. That might not bother you if "God loves you, so everything's gonna be OK" is the type of sentiment you don't mind hearing five times over throughout the course of an album, but for those of us who want Christian music to help us think and actually strengthen our faith in doing so, Third Day has nothing to offer.

But they've certainly upped the ante on the star power this time around, and hey, that's a pretty huge distraction, isn't it? I can't recall a big-name guest ever being such a huge part of the draw on any other 3D album - sure, they paid their respects to underappreciated Christian artists by having Rich Mullins and Adam Again's Riki Michele by giving them subtle but effective guest spots on early albums, and they did "God of Wonder" as a live duet with Michael Tait on Offerings II. But there are three guests all trying to draw your attention and your hard-earned dollars to a purchase of this album, and as much as I hate to admit this, they might actually provide most of the highlights that are to be found on Revelation. I'll credit them for their diversity - one guest is an American Idol runner-up who has actually been a 3D fan since long before he got his own career started, and the other two are somewhat underappreciated "mainstream Christian" artists who you wouldn't necessarily expect to associate themselves with an album that would so front-and-center in the CCM market. Guest stars aren't a bad thing, but I notice myself getting bored when it's just Mac and the boys on the other tracks. Also troubling is the fact that when they do seem to get a solid riff or a catchy chord progression going on many of these new songs, they seem to simply be rubber-stamping the same musical ideas that gave them success on their self-titled album and Time. The glory days were great, but that doesn't mean that a blatant attempt to relive them is automatically gonna win me back, you know? I need to see a band like this growing, not vacillating back and forth between two divergent audiences that they can't seem to please all at the same time.

Third Day is essentially turning into the Southern Rock version of Michael W. Smith. They're charismatic entertainers and they strike me as 100% real, down-to-earth, likeable guys, but the need for consummate showmanship and everyman-style relatability seems to have superseded their need to challenge themselves creatively. This sort of thing is far from being front-page news in Christian music, which means that Revelation is anything but.

This Is Who I Am
I'm the lover of a beauty
I'm a father of blessings
I'm a singer of a love song
But is that all I'm good for?
The band gets off to a respectable start with the jerky riffing and palm muting that drives this little statement of individuality - Mac Powell invests a bit more energy than we'd usually expect in the specifics of his personality, noting that he's a contradictory person, a sinner and a saint all at once, a man expected to wear many hats. He presents this whole messy package to God, and in what is perhaps the only line of lyrics on the entire album that I could deem anywhere close to clever, he remarks, "Take me as I am... but please don't leave me that way." It's a short and sweet song that makes its point and gets out of the way, and the only glaring flaw I can find here is that Mark Lee's guitar riffs are a little too close to the Third Day classic "Sky Falls Down" for comfort.

Slow Down
Tell me to slow down
If you see that I'm running too fast in the wrong race
Tell me to slow down
If you think that I can't keep up with my own pace...
"Alright, let's rock it!" declares one of the guys in the band, or perhaps the high-profile guest-star of the moment, who just so happens to be American Idol finalist Chris Daughtry. I can't tell who it is, and that inability to determine that there's an extra voice in the mix unfortunately persists throughout the entire song. Daughtry is allegedly singing backup vocals, but either his voice just isn't a very distinctive one, or he sounds too much like the other dudes in the band who normally provide backup. The song's not bad - a medium-paced rocker in which Powell begs God for direction and invites admonishment if it turns' out he's going the wrong way or taking life at too quick of a pace to really be able to see what God is doing in the midst of it. It needs a little more oomph to really live up to the snippet of studio chatter that introduces it, but I don't hate it. There's a solid guitar solo in the middle eight that was likely one of departed guitarist Brad Avery's final contributions to the band. I just think they should have done more with their high-profile guest star if they want people who watch American Idol (I figure I'm the only guy in the country who never has, to be honest with you) to actually get excited about his presence on the album.

Call My Name
The pain inside has erased your hope for love
But soon you will find
That I'll give you all that your heart could ever want
And so much more...
So, this is the big lead-off single currently getting a crazy amount of spins at Christian radio, and subtle enough in the religion department to be a clear grab at some mainstream radio play as well - and it's every bit as inane as "I Believe", Third Day's last attempt at straddling the fence between the two worlds. I won't begrudge Third Day the desire to not discriminate in terms of the audience they want to reach, but I think the obvious fact is that due to their lyrical simplicity, they're a lot better at encouraging the already faithful than they are at illuminating any sorts of meaningful insights to those who don't yet call themselves Christians (or who do, but think Christian music's a waste of time - the way things are these, days, I wouldn't blame those folks). What we have here is a blanket promise from God that calling His name will put an end to all "sadness" and "madness" and everything else we learned about in Cliched Christian Songwriting 101. The lyrics operate at a "Cheesy E-card your girlfriend sends you" intelligence level, and yet somehow, the band manages to put a solid enough performance behind it that I can somehow, miraculously get over the cringe-worthy sentimentality and enjoy the song for the sheer force of it. This is largely a combo of Benson's production values, which turn it into a big ol' wall of sound, the dual guitar attack of Lee and Avery (the absence of the latter explaining why it sounded like paper-thin crap on The Tonight Show last week), and one of the hands-down best vocal performances I've ever heard from Mac Powell. The sticky-sweet, superficial lyrics may not make you a believer, but the stratospheric, passionate performance by Mr. Powell should certainly more than to enough to convince you that he believes every word he's singing, right down to the drum breakdown at the end where most of the instruments cut out, and then finally, he's left alone, with his final cry of "You just call my name!" ringing out into the night. If the band had written powerful lyrics worthy of such a performance, I can guarantee you we'd have had an instant 3D classic on our hands.

Run to You
What I thought was the best of me turned to be
All the worst I could find...
This might be about the closest thing to a classic that I can find on Revelation - David Carr's drums start us off with a nice, rolling 6/8 rhythm, and for a little bit it sort of feels like a subdued version of "Consuming Fire" with a similarly moody chord progression. Once again, it's the big, clean production that makes the song feel larger than life even though the lyrics aren't really all that special. Mac's tone is more confessional as he takes on the role of a prodigal son coming back to God after some sort of unspecified rebellion. But it's the second verse where this one really starts to take off, as Lacy Mosley, lead singer of the alternative rock band Flyleaf, shows up with a duet vocal trailing just behind Mac's, and the combined force of these two unique voices adds quite a bit of kinetic energy that carries the rest of the song quiet beautifully. (I like Lacy. She's got an earnest, Eisley-meets-Evanescence sort of charm to her, without sounding quite as girlish as the former or as glum as the latter. I really should check out her band next time they come up with an album.) Get these two vocalist trading wordless ad-libs on top of another well-timed guitar solo, and it's a trio made in heaven. And when all else fails, it can't hurt to throw in another slick ending that pares back everything but the vocals, coming to a precise, cold stop after the final cry of "If I run to You". We're three for four in the "cool song endings" department!

Revelation
My life has led me down this path that's ever winding
Through every twist and turn I'm always finding
That I am lost again
Tell me when this road will ever end...
Maybe I'm forgetting a few less remarkable songs in between, but I can't recall a Third Day song that started off with the piano featured so prominently since "Thief" on the first album. (The band doesn't seem to have a permanent keyboard player, so that might explain why they generally don't focus on the instrument.) I probably shouldn't have brought up "Thief", because this rather lackluster title track doesn't really warrant the comparison. It's a rather vague and muddled ballad about being confused and needing God to give you some clear direction. There's nothing said here that wasn't already said in "Slow Down", and despite the band's promise that Revelation deals with more honest questions and doubts that Christians have as they grow older in the faith, this song just isn't delivering on that front. They're glossing over the subject of difficult questions and the elusive discipline of waiting on God's will in the most general terms possible. When the chorus of a song contains such non-specific clunkers as "Tell me, should I stay here, or do I need to move?" and the way-overused sentiment "I've got nothing without you", it's clearly time to title your record after a better song.

Otherside
One thing that's for sure I know
This won't be an easy road
Let me ask before I leave
Won't you come along with me...
Now here's a song that kicks butt, at least on a musical level. The boys did good in realizing that they had come up with a sort of funk-influenced riff that reminded them of something Robert Randolph might play, so they figured they might as well just invite him to play on the album. Randolph spices up the "good-ol-boy" Southern rock sound of Third Day with his own brand of steel guitar-driven funk, and while it's not as much of a total rave-up as your average Randolph track, it's still a blast of a rocker that feels more alive than anything Third Day's done since "I Can Feel It" three years ago. You can think of it as a Robert Randolph song if you like - the lyrics are about as retarded as the average song Randolph's recorded with his own Family Band. They're all about wanting something vaguely better than what you have now, and begging God to take you to the "other side", where you can live forever, and... actually, that's about it. I won't be as hard on it for that as I would be on a slower, more serious song that's supposed to get our attention and make us all weepy due to what's being sung - this track is clearly here to get a party started, and it does that well, so I'm fine with considering the lyrics an afterthought. (And even on this shining moment of musical excellence, arguably the highlight of the album, I can't help but notice that the chorus comes dangerously close to ripping off Third Day's song "Never Bow Down".) It's gonna be a blast live - I can assure you of that much. Third Day was wise to invite Robert Randolph & the Family Band out on their fall tour, even if I'm kind of miffed that they're getting billed above the much more widely-recognized, and frankly all-around better band, Jars of Clay.

Let Me Love You
Ever since the world around you shattered
You've been looking everywhere for something more
Sometimes you feel like your life doesn't matter
But it does, I tell you it does...
Blah. This slab of mid-tempo shlock brings whatever momentum the band had managed to build up with that last track to a screeching halt. It's a string-drenched love song that could have been written by Everyman, USA, rife with vomit-inducing lines about kissing away tears and all of that usual "I want to write a romantic love song, but I have to play coy with the eros vs. the spiritual stuff just to keep the Christian radio stations from accusing it of not being a 'Christian song'" garbage. There's absolutely no reason for this to exist when "Call My Name" said the same vague thing to the tune of better music. Next!

I Will Always Be True
If you need a shoulder to cry on
I'm here every time
And when you need a hand to hold
I'll give you mine...
Third Day's really pushing their luck with two of these "love song that might be from God or man, but we're not telling" antics back to back. However, they manage to come off as being slightly more talented here, solely due to their ability to actually embrace their Southern origins instead of covering them up with the typical big-city pop/rock fluff. That means that there's cowbell and the sort of melody that actually sounds sorta like a country song, and Mark Lee lets a totally fun, country-fried electric guitar solo rip. It's not a super fast or rockin' song - it's actually still rather easygoing. But the music spares it from being a total failure, even though I still can't say I give a rip about what they're singing at this point.

Born Again
I've a feeling in my soul
And I pray that I'm not wrong
That the life I have now
It is only the beginning...
Lacy Mosley's guest spot on track 4 worked out so well that I guess they figured it'd be a good idea to bring her back for a second round. Here she does more of a true duet with Mac on a mellower, more acoustic song, getting to take the mic for the entire second verse (with Mac backing her up for part of it). It's rife with cliches, as pretty much every song in the Third Day canon has been since 2001, but Lacy’s performance adds a striking layer of urgency and believability to the honest prayers in this song. Third Day is attempting to describe a moment of transformation - that point where an individual first realizes his or her need to be saved by a power greater than themselves. My rule when it comes to using cliches in songs is that you can sometimes get away with it if you attempt to explain the meaning or intent behind the cliche. Since Mac and Lacy are sort of doing this, I'm willing to give it a passing grade, even though it could have been a much more moving song if they'd worked a little harder on the lyrics and done something a little more spectacular than the ending.

Give Love
Listen very closely as I sing this song
And please believe that I mean every word
When I say I love you, I mean it with all my heart
Let it be the best thing that you've ever heard...
Here we go again - another song that's sweet in the music department, and that sucks in the lyrics department. I'm in almost immediately when the relaxed, country-influenced shuffle of this song breaks in complete with the plucking of a banjo, and it just feels like a Sunday drive down a rural road with no particular destination in mind. Then Mac opens his mouth and sleepily delivers his fourth attempt on this album to convince us that he (or God?) loves someone so much that he'll never give up on them. Therefore, we'll get back all of the love that we give. Yadda yadda, flower power, give peace a chance, can't we all just get along, Kum Ba Yah, BARF.

Caught Up in Yourself
You think if you surrender, it's the end, but just remember
Life is more than dying embers burning in your soul
And I know it's true, 'cause I am just like you...
Hey, look it's a rocker with attitude! I think this must have been a Wire reject or something. I'm not certain what it's doing here. It reminds me of one of the attempts to dress down a celebrity convinced of their own greatness that we heard in "Rockstar" or "Billy Brown", or shoot, even "Blackbird", but it's about ten times as faceless as any of those songs (the first two that I mentioned not being all that great to start with). It's actually a bit jarring to hear the harsh words, "You're so good, but you'll never be good enough", and "Thank God for everything you've got before it's too late" coming on the heels of so much mushy sentimentality earlier in the album. What they're saying is true, if you understand the theology behind the song, but it does the listener no favors in terms of explaining the concept that a person can't buy their way to God through good deeds. To be honest, it just comes off as a sort of veiled threat, which sort of puts them in Kutless territory (in the sense that they mean well, but suffer from laughably terrible communication skills).

Ready
I want the world to turn because of love
And mercy to find each of us
Doing what we can to just believe...
Here's a half-hearted jangle-pop sort of song that sounds like the illegitimate child of "I Believe" and, um, "Believe". (You know, the second track on Time. Apparently these guys have difficulties coming up with interesting names for their songs.) It kind of plods along and waxes optimistic about being ready for the world to change, and said change happening if all of us faithful people would "just believe", and... really, were they trying to write the most vague "rally the troops" sort of song that they possibly could? Because that's what they've accomplished. It's total filler, just there to put a semi-upbeat transitional song in between the harshness of the previous track and the big, weepy finale.

Take It All
All the roads that lie before me
All the struggles I go through
Every second a reminder
That it all belongs to You...
This song sounds like it wants to be an epic with the way that it builds from a simple acoustic guitar and sensitive-guy vocals at the beginning to a huge chorus once it really picks up steam. In that since, it feels a lot like... you guessed it, "Give", the closing track from Time. But it's not quite that expansive. I'll give the band credit for restraint - they keep the entire band from breaking in and taking the obvious approach on the first chorus, so that the second verse begins to pick up with the drums and so forth, each segment feeling more powerful than the preceding one, until finally the full force of the band (as filtered through the Howard Benson machine, of course) is present upon their return from the bridge. It's a song of total surrender, a sentiment which is well-placed at the end of the album, sort of bookending it if you compare this offering of "Take the first, take the last, take the good and take the rest" with the assorted good and bad character traits Mac listed about himself in "This Is Who I Am". The music sounds rather soaring and inspirational, and that's all good, but the usual problem of vagueness once again keeps the song from having a truly impressive impact on the listener. It's not a terrible finale, though. By the time it shows up after the dud tracks that precede it, I'm usually quite relieved, to tell you the truth.

So there you have it, the lukewarm non-event that is Revelation. It's not a famously bad album - really quite agreeable if you're more the "casual listening" type who doesn't mind being jolted awake with a solid rocker here and there. But I don't see it being taken all that seriously by Christian rock fans who have moved onto greener (and spiritually meatier) pastures and explored bands that don't have to kowtow to the middle-of-the-road demands of Christian Hit Radio. (Especially with Brad Avery gone and no apparent plans to replace him - their rockin' days are pretty much over, as far as I'm concerned.) Third Day's bid to win back the more mature, discerning segment of their audience has failed. From this point on, they're best off just staying the course and sticking with what they know, and selling bazillions of albums in the process.

Before I close, a quick word about Revelation's album cover, a montage of the song titles that is supposed to serve as a sort of homage to a monument called "Salvation Mountain" that a man built in the California desert to send the simple message that "God Loves Everyone". (If you've seen the film Into the Wild, this monument makes a brief appearance during the final flashback set in California.) Unfortunately, just about any savvy music fan will note that it's really an egregious ripoff of Radiohead's album cover for Hail to the Thief. Maybe Third Day didn't know this. But I find it difficult to believe that nobody in the production line noticed the similarity.

But I guess that's just the way it goes with Third Day in the 21st century. They're more or less content to borrow from better sources (including their older material) and hope nobody cares as long as the result puts a smile on their face and a warm fuzzy in their heart. And it's because of this that you can officially consider me a former fan at this point.

ALBUM WORTH:
This Is Who I Am $1
Slow Down $1
Call My Name $1
Run to You $1.50
Revelation $.50
Otherside $1.50
Let Me Love You -$.50
I Will Always Be True $.50
Born Again $1.50
Give Love $.50
Caught Up in Yourself $0
Ready -$.50
Take It All $1
TOTAL: $8.50

Band Members:
Mac Powell: Lead vocals, guitar
Mark Lee: Guitar, backing vocals
Tai Anderson: Bass, backing vocals
David Carr: Drums
Brad Avery: Guitar, piano (former member)

Recommended: No