Categories: uncategorized
Date: 17 October 2005 20:06:17
Pre-review comment 1:
Before we start it's Kercal policy to mention that reviews are subjective things, what is my favourite song may not be yours, vice versa and etcetera. It's also subject to change, I wasn't sure about World Service on first listen, now I love it to pieces as I love 'Audio Lessonover', 'King of Fools' and 'Glo'. I offer up my initial thoughts on the new Deli? CD but by all means reply away and say what you feel, now and once you've grabbed the CD itself. I am deliberately not going to name specific tracks, because that's for you to find out when you get there and see if you agree with me, although I may come back later when the CD has been released and do a directors cut review :) Now that I've almost successfully invalidated all that I'm about to say lets press on to pre-review comment 2:
Pre-review comment 2:
I'm not normally this wordy when it comes to reviewing cd's. The reviews for Cross Rhythms, for example, have to fit into 250 words and tick a couple of boxes, and have to be done within a certain timescale. Having cart blanch with this one has allowed me to blather on and on and on :)
Review! Only it's not a review! It's a comment piece!
Delirious? are back with The Mission Bell, released on November the 7th. Two years ago they were telling us that World Service was their best CD to date. The Mission Bell is better, but, conversely, it's also not quite as good in some places...
Confused? I'll try and clarify. Firstly I'd like to say that I'm a fan of Delirious? not only musically but as an entity. From design to world view, message to delivery each CD is a delight from an enormously talented and intelligent act (although in retrospect the text on the insert of the AL cd was almost completely illegible in it's design, but fun at the time). Of course it's about the music and the message, but for me the first sight of the CD cover is always a joy, checking out the design and typography, the literature and the website. Team Delirious? congratulations one and all :)
Back to recent history then: World Service was indeed Delirious'? finest CD to date in many ways. The songs didn't immediately grab me in the way that 'Audio Lessonover' managed so effortlessly but the depth and quality of the songs on offer won through after a couple of listens. 'Majesty' was, of course, a gold plated classic and if one song could be picked as the soundtrack to faith then that would almost certainly be it. As entrancing as it was I found the rest of the CD less instantly likeable, although nowadays I'm as fond of 'Inside Outside' and 'Every Little Thing' as anyone. A grower then, revealing its quality and intellect with each play.
The finest quality of 'World Service' (and Glo, while we're on the subject), was its cohesive quality, the single mindedness of the tracks on offer, or, as it's described on Fierce's very own online shop, 'the truth, whole truth and nothing but'. I didn't notice it at first but WS is a consistent message and each song blends perfectly from one to the other leading finishing with the wonderful culmination of 'Every Little Thing'. It was one story split into perfectly weighted chapters, each with their own theme and sound, one balancing the other and pulling it into the whole. For me that's the mark of a truly great CD, that it's one song and a group. A focused team effort with no fluff, no weak links, perfectly capturing an era of a bands progression on a shiny silver disc.
The Mission Bell isn't like that. It's a greatest hits CD of songs that you've not heard yet. Some, a good number of the songs on offer, feel like sequels to songs we know and love from the D? Boys. Some harken back to 'Glo', others to 'Audio Lessonover' and others to 'Access:D' while all maintaining the progression of skill and personal journey of the musicians. One track even takes me back to 'King of Fools' but that may well be just me there... This leads to the one criticism I have of the Mission Bell. Some tracks seemed out of place in the running order, bonus tracks patched into the whole, nice to hear but diverting the flow of the songs from one to the next. A couple of songs have yet to grow on me, I'm not anti, just yet to find what it is they offer and how they fit into the CD itself.
So where does that leave us? A mid-scoring CD then? Disastrous? Not a bit of it. TMB is occasionally disjointed, but this is Delirious? at their wordly best (note spelling). The Mission Bell nails the colour firmly to the mast. 'Paint The Town Red' is a triumphant, urgent track, easily my favourite D? single by a mile and for the most part the songs are wonderful, as enthralling as anything they're written to date, ticking the right boxes with an empowered, well practised flourish. Any Delirious? CD is an event, something to relish and enjoy, something to examine and let yourself be encouraged by. Some of the songs that TMB bring us scream that they will be absolute corkers played live, others will find their way into your mind and subconsciously become the soundtrack to all sorts of prayers, hopes and dreams and you can sing along to the songs safe in the knowledge that they are amongst the best the band has offered us. 'The Mission Bell' is at times an amazing collection, a brand new greatest hits. It feels churlish and hard hearted to criticise anything from the band (actually any criticism feels like I'm breaking an Old Testament law in some way) but that would be a soft approach. TMB raises the bar in places, lowers it in others (imo), but at the end of the day its a new D?CD and as always that's worth sitting up and taking notice of. It'll be in my CD player for a long time to come and as ever, here's to the achievement of yet another Deliriously good corker of a Christmas pressie from them to us. Roll on the gigs. Hearing the CD early is one thing (and thanks to the people who organised that by the by, although I dare say that this review may well have removed me from lists permanently) but hearing 'Paint The Town Red' sung live? Cannot wait.
Marks out of 10? Buy it/10.
Points of interest:
>Opening song, Stronger, also features on the music inspired by The Chronicles of Narnia CD, released, I guess, to coincide with the release of the film.
>Paint The Town Red was performed for the first time in an intimate gig in Horsham, I'm told repeatedly by friends who where there. It's also the first iTunes song by a UK Christian artist.
>Another review of the cd can be found at: http://www.xt3.com/Magazine/Article.asp?ID=1113
>Less wordy reviews of other artist cd's from me can be found at
http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/products/Sonicflood/This_Generation/12837/
http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/products/House_Of_Heroes/House_Of_Heroes/12933/
http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/products/Dave_Bilbrough/This_Is_My_Worship_Live_And_Acoustic/12789/ and http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/products/Adelaide/Over_Tired__Ill_Prepared/13397/
to prove that I can fit in a 250 word guideline and review a varied selection of bands.
Currently listening to: Delirious?: The Mission Bell. Lucky me :~) yay. Currently playing: Prince of Persia: Sands of Time on Xbox and Yoshi's Touch and Go on DS.