Journal
Delirious? - The Mission Bell
Posted on December 13th, 2005, in the evening
These days I greet a new Delirious? album with a certain amount of trepidation. It's fully nine years since this band made sense of my sixteen-year-old life with a single song ('Obsession'), and I feel loyal and distant in fairly equal measure. The trepidation is compounded by the fact that as Delirious? have thrashed out their identity in the years since they took that name they have produced both shining brilliance and clunking mediocrity, sometimes within the same song. Navigating the first play of a new Delirious? record has become something of an emotional minefield.
But from the first listen it's clear that The Mission Bell is a special album. I pressed 'play' again as soon the CD finished, and again when it finished the second time. There's none of that empty kind of disappointment you get when a CD doesn't quite live up to your expectations. Delirious? sound fresher than anything since King of Fools, and now draw together a massively broader sonic range with competence befitting eight-album veterans. This is a really good album!
The band just seem comfortable in their own sound. They've managed to fuse their post-King-of-Fools experimentation with World Service's renewed sense of purpose. Over the course of The Mission Bell we're treated to some steel guitar, gospel choirs, guitar parts of almost Queen-esque pomposity and the frankly terrifying prospect of TobyMac rapping 'My hope is built on nothing less' but astonishingly without embarrassment.
Lyrically too, this is a clear step forward. Martin Smith has always had a weakness for cringeworthy couplets, and there are one or two clangers on The Mission Bell. There is simply no excuse for the line "As I touch the power of God's great harp," but there are some great verses too, and new lyrical perspectives. There is powerful truth as, reflecting on the Aids crisis in 'Our God reigns', Martin sings "But still my Chinese Takeaway/Could pay for someone's drugs."
I think the opener 'Stronger' is, somewhat ironically, the weakest track, so don't be put off if it doesn't grab you. The stand-outs for me are the truly anthemic 'Now is the time', 'Fires burn', 'Our God reigns', and 'Take off my shoes'. There are no tracks I've been skipping, which is a rare thing. And these songs will absolutely rock live.
This coming Friday I will be relinquishing my status as possibly the only Christian in the UK who hasn't seen Delirious? live, and I don't think there's been a better time to do so.
- Delirious?
- The Mission Bell on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com
