The freed members of the threesome formerly known to Christendom as dcTalk have introduced us to their individual selves with two-thirds tepid results: straight-laced, boring pop (Tait), and wildly over-praised, aggressively obnoxious rap (TobyMac). Kevin Max, the most eclectic and talented of the three, is the only one who didn’t drop parts of his name for his new moniker, and who has continued to make interesting music since dcTalk went on permanent hiatus in 2000. And just as the Christian music body count continues to escalate and the industry has either fallen apart or completely transformed (take your pick), this industry veteran returns to lob a curveball at the whole idea of what “Christian music” is in the first place.

Allow me to analyze Max by continuing to analyze dcTalk. From another era of evangelicalism and of American culture, dcTalk’s mainstream success and Grammy awards (unlike those of Casting Crowns) actually meant something. When these three first released gold albums and charted on mainstream radio, there wasn’t clonetastic Christian rock. No established cash-cow infrastructure handed them their “success” before they’d ever played a show. However one feels about their hokey Christianism, I would venture to suggest dc Talk succeeded on its talents more than its message. No one had quite heard anything like “Jesus Freak” before. And I maintain that “In the Light” and “Consume Me” are as well-written pop songs as any other alternative rock that blossomed in the 1990s.

Those roots are half of what informs The Blood, which is equal parts dcTalk and black and Southern gospel. In the tiny bit of promotional material squeezed onto the card accompanying my advance copy, Max explains his attempt to connect modern music, as well as his spiritual self, with the gospel music that is so integral to American heritage. He hopes his effort will not be a retread of gospel classics or a “homogenized, white” attempt to replicate the black-gospel soul. And he absolutely pulls it off—the authenticity, more than the musical result, is one of the highlights of The Blood. Not Christian music so much as a study of Christian music, this record nostalgically holds up gospel music in its purer form, so much richer in culture than the plasticized nonsense that more or less purports to carry its torch.

Max’s fluid vocals are so eternally associated with dcTalk that his old band appears to be all over this record. But the flashbacks are as literal as they are figurative. After a scene-setting but throwaway rendition of “The Old Rugged Cross,” Michael Tait and Toby McKeehan join Max for the gusty, rocking “The Cross.” With three-strand harmony and a spiraling guitar solo, it is a skillful, surprisingly classic exegesis of dcTalk’s just-under-the-surface affection for African-American soul. Max cheekily blends his former band’s fist-pumping, evangelical solidarity with legit, earthy gospel in an energetic cover of Blind Boys of Alabama’s “God’s Gonna Cut You Down.” He could stop there, and the connection he was aiming for has been finally and indisputably made.

Thankfully he doesn’t stop; he’s got a whole lot of soul for a blonde white guy, as he reveals on the show-stopping, pitch-perfect “Trouble of the World,” a Negro spiritual reborn as an indie rock ballad with a choir of gospel ghosts. We’ve got wooden-church-house piano, wisps of organ, but it’s all underlaid with a meaty, distorted guitar arpeggios. Max’s virtuoso vocals again carry “I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole,” a cut-time, stripped-down bluegrass cover of Blind Willie Johnson.

Although we get some significant moments of filler and some big-name collaborations that don’t entirely take off, The Blood never once feels like a stock gospel album, nor a fading Christian artist pandering to a new demographic. It should be a compliment to say that Max both covers Johnny Cash and sings with Cash’s sister (“One Way, One Blood”) and still avoids accusations of sucking up. Only a musician with some versatile talent and genuine soul could pull off an album like this, and Kevin Max is the proud owner of both.

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