Now Is The Time: A delirious? Interview
Published by kim on Sat, 2005-01-01 00:00cMusicWeb.com: What excites you about your career now that you have been around for so long?
cMusicWeb.com: What excites you about your career now that you have been around for so long?
Over the years, delirious? have released many concert recordings. However, the concert experience does not get any better than this, the band's only Blu-Ray release. Thanks to the technology of the Blu-Ray disc, the video and audio quality are like they have never been before. Watching this on your home video system is definitely the closest to feeling like you were there.
The five guys from Littlehampton, England known as delirious? have had an amazing career. From leading worship for a local church movement in 1992 to being a pop radio hit in Germany to playing for hundreds of thousands in Hyderabad, India, these guys have done it all. Fall 2009 brought their farewell tour of the United Kingdom. Thankfully, the last show of the tour, at London's iconic Hammersmith Apollo, was recorded for all of us to enjoy. Even though delirious?
A collection of some of delirious?'s best tracks all on one disc.
Recorded live at an event in Bogota, Colombia, this live CD/DVD features songs from Kingdom of Comfort as well as some classic songs, including a version of "My Soul Sings" sung in Spanish by a Colombian worship leader.
I first encountered the band Delirious? ten years ago, shortly after the release of their single “Deeper.” I fell in love with the song on the first listen. I remember being one of a small percentage who had heard of Delirious? when they played an early slot on the opening night of Creation East that year. Soon we heard tracks like “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever” and “Did You Feel the Mountains Tremble” not only being sung by Delirious? but by church worship teams and other CCM bands. I scarfed up all those early discs that Sparrow put out after D?
The first full-length live DVD from delirious?, it features a full concert from Willow Creek Church in Chicago featuring songs from The Mission Bell as well as some classics songs. Also includes a CD of most of the songs as well.
Another in delirious?'s later worship/rock albums, this features "Now Is The Time", "Solid Rock", and "Our God Reigns".
When you have an album from a band like Delirious?, you have to set the standard at an incredible height. Cutting Edge, King of Fools and Glo continue to be the benchmark for many Christian albums years after their respective releases. Even 2001's experimental Audio Lessonover? had fantastic properties (before it was fed to the US public as the regurgitated Touch). So how does their latest effort hold up against their previous standards? Well, that all depends on how you judge your music...
Delirious? has long been the heavyweight champion of rock, let alone rock with a spiritual theme. In my opinion they're the only band that holds a chance of meeting the level of U2. The music industry as a whole would be at an extreme loss if these five English boys had never decided to invest years into making songs. Their influence spans nations, bringing aggressive guitars, passionate lyrics, and bold vocals into the limelight.
A heat-sensitive cover. Remixes and re-recordings. Cuts and additions. A bonus enhanced CD. Hate 'em or love 'em, you've got to hand it to the fab five from Littlehampton: they sure know how to put together an irresistible package.
But beauty is, as they say, only skin-deep. Once you've finished playing with the trendy cardboard cover and staring at the European fashions that grace the album art, you're going to excitedly place Touch in your CD player, and then comes the crucial moment. Does it bring elation or disappointment?
Containing the lyrics sung by lead singer Martin Smith translated into Spanish, the album features worship anthems from the Cutting Edge days. The most notable change is an extended version of "Thank You For Saving Me" in Spanish.
Try as I may, I cannot say it better than the text on the back of the Deeper cover: “…but the numbers, the chick, the polish are all unimportant: what has been truly impressive about the Delirious? journey so far is their, well, it’s their journey…”
Music redefined? Whoever heard of such nonsense? Surely it couldn't have happened...
Oh, but it has. Ever since Brit-boys Delirious? arrived on the scene they've managed to criss-cross the worship and rock genres unlike any Christian artists before them. As if we weren't already captivated, the band has enrolled in another music lesson; one that will redefine their music and the future of Delirious? themselves. Class is in session. It's time for an Audio Lessonover?
Back when Martin Smith was scared of crowds, before Stu G. groupies hounded them, and "delirious" was another term for being intoxicated, a few British guys made a decision: they'd rock hard in leading worship, but a flashy show wouldn't ever replace the presence of God. Eight years later, the d:boys bring that same naive vision to Glo, forming a new paradigm of congregational song.
The peaceful madness of five anointed British musicians resurfaces in a canon of fourteen songs welding advanced, echoic rock with down-to-earth lyrics. Mezzamorphis is the refined or concentrated essence of delirious?, music that blurs where Cutting Edge worship stops, and where a new unbridled sonic force begins.
Capturing the glory years of d:touring, d:tour 1997 Live displays the raw passion and grit that Delirious? brought to the stage while supporting King of Fools.
It was the album that broke Delirious? big into North America. King of Fools housed the radio gem "Deeper," which exploded on radio and displayed to fans across the country that Britain wasn't empty of good Christian music. Though Delirious? would go on to have much more success in North America, it is this album that displays their magic and their feel for anthemic melodies.
After the intimate worship of Cutting Edge, and the British rock of King of Fools, what to expect on a live deliriou5? album? Anyone who's seen them live knows what to expect: The Unexpected. Live and In The Can is something totally, totally different than what we call a live album. This is not hearing a concert--this is being there.
Youth For the Nations. Aldersgate. Brownsville Revival. Rock the Nations. The Almighty, Living GOD of the universe is pouring down revival that is changing lives. And a big tool He is using is the anointed songs of worship and adoration by songwriter Martin Smith, lead vocalist for the British band deliriou5? Their four demos recorded from 92-95, have just been remastered on a double CD set, Cutting Edge, a landmark recording that serves as a soundtrack to the move of God sweeping across the Atlantic from the British Isles.