Come Together

It’s been Third Day’s special mission to apply the rough-cut edge of Southern Rock to contemporary worship music. The Georgia-based quintet achieved an especially winning combination of music and message on Come Together in 2001. The songs draw upon the themes and motifs of the psychedelic era, all in the service of expressing Christian love and faith. Mac Powell’s emotive growl of a voice — pitched somewhere between Travis Tritt and Eddie Vedder — carries a distinctive back-woods grit, yet also conveys humility and reverence. He roars through the churning “40 Days” and testifies plaintively on the simmering “Nothing Compares.” As a unit, Third Day slinks into Stones-style blues-rock on “I’m Still Listening” and slips in some hip-hop groovesmanship on “My Heart” and “I Got You.” The title track is an idealistic call for brotherhood akin to the Jesus Music of the early ‘70s. All told, Come Together successfully dips into the sonic colors and lyric sentiments of the Summer Of Love within a modern Christian music context, offering them up with the down-home flavor that’s won the band an enduring following.