Mezzamorphis (CD)

MEZZAMORPHIS

A BAND IN PROCESS

Here in America, time has a way of condensing. Last year alone, there were retro fashion revivals for every decade since the 30's, and the pace of change only seems to quicken. If that's true in general, it's far more a reality for the English band Delirious, which has had the creative product of its seven years deposited on American soil in less than 24 months.

At the end of '97, Sparrow Records released the massive two-disc pop/worship album, Cutting Edge, to both strong reviews and an incredible audience response in the States. Some of the songs on that album had been recorded over four years earlier, and the collection had been released throughout the U.K. and Europe on the band's own Furious? Records label. Then in mid-'98, Sparrow released the band's pop/rock follow-up, King of Fools, which at that time was already a year old in the U.K., where the band has a successful mainstream single with "Deeper." Now, shifting into high gear, Delirious is releasing Mezzamorphis, an album documenting the growth and change in the band as they travel their faith-journey and expand musical horizons.

A New Sound

What has been a gradual growth process for the band; spiritually, musically and career-wise;has felt far more rapid to fans, especially in the condensed North American setting. For band leader and singer Martin Smith, the changes as Delirious has stepped up to the challenge of taking its music from the safe confines of youth worship in the church to evangelizing the world have felt very natural."I think we're still that little worship band that we were six years ago," he says. "When we're in private we're still talking about those very same things that motivated us back then. I think there will always be a vertical thing going on with the records and when people come out to see us play live. There always has been, and I think there always will. I think if we've lost that, we've lost the whole plot. What we're about is the challenge to communicate in a way that does truly communicate to folk outside of the church. To get it across in a way that isn't just limited to language. I think we're getting there."

Still, Martin acknowledges that there has been recognizable change. Musically, Mezzamorphis is a more aggressive, modern rock album, embracing the current sounds and seeking to make their own unique mark. Some of the change, he says, is just part of the quintet growing up, maturing both spiritually and as people. "Generally, what people mean when they say, this is totally different, is that this is not a worship album. But for us, it doesn't feel like we went in to make a different record, to us it has a lot of the same elements. It's just older, bigger and a bit more manly. It just came out this way, and it reflects where we are at this point in time. We've always written about what we see, and I think that hasn't changed. We're still writing about what we see, we've just been seeing more of the world."

Mezzamorphis does rock with more intentionality, says guitarist/songwriter Stuart Garrard. But, he's quick to point out that it's been two and a half years since King of Fools was recorded, and pop music has changed and the band has grown musically. "This has been a totally natural progression for us musically," assures Stu. "We don't feel that it's been massively different. One difference is that we had Jack Joseph Puig mix it (Eric Clapton, Semisonic, Tonic), and that took it to another league."

Getting There

For those who were living in a cave and may have missed the story the first round, Stu G. offers this brief history. Delirious for Dummies: "We started off doing the 'Cutting Edge' monthly events for local kids in Littlehampton, on the south coast of England. Those events grew quite quickly to around 1300 people in a year and a half. The songs Martin was writing seemed to hit a nerve with youngsters. There's an honesty and naivete about them that connected. We started to do events around England, and began to believe that one day people would hear our songs on the radio. We released these six song cassettes, which the kids wanted so they could take the songs home. Those recordings (later) became the first American release, Cutting Edge. In late '95, Martin had a car accident, and it got him thinking about what we were going to do as a band, and with the rest of our lives. So, we became a full-time band."

When the song "Deeper" became a chart-topping single on BBC radio, drawing comparisons to bands like U2 and Oasis, Delirious began to feel that they were going where God wanted them."As we've developed" explains Stu G., "we wanted to write about our faith in music that worked on a musical level for non-Christians, and for the Christian listener will work on both a musical and spiritual level. In the 'Cutting Edge' events and the songs we were sharing, we were telling kids not to hold their faith inside the four walls of the church, but to take it outside and share it with the world. It would be hypocritical for us not to do the same thing. We've had people tell us that there's an inspiration in our music, similar to what they've heard in U2's music, and they want to know what it is. That's the exact impact we've longed to have."

The Influences

Current influences, Stu says include: "Radiohead; Manic Street Preachers, a band from Whales; obviously U2’s still in it for us. John, our bass player's really into some of the hip-hop, remix-y kinds of things: DJ Shadow, The Beastie Boys. I'm a massive reggae fan for instance, and all these things manage to influence you in some way, even if it's not always readily apparent on the surface. In "Heaven" there are these bridge sections where the kick drums kicking four on the floor, which is basically a ska pattern. That comes out of my reggae background, although no one's going to mistake the song for ska or reggae. We're all finding ways of getting into the music now, in the past we might not have had the craft to do that.

"When we write,"; Stu continues, "we never really set out to write a particular thing. We constantly talk and analyze our music and the world around us, but when it's time to write, we have to express what's going on inside of us. We started to write more, and songs like'Deeper' began to pop out. To us, they're no different, it's just a bit of progression."

Growing Up

Martin acknowledges that in the last seven years the members of Delirious have in fact become grown-ups. "Even though we haven't changed a lot, we're still the same blokes we were when we started out, but in another way, I guess we have changed. We were boys when we started out and we're men now, and we've got our own kids. Our opinions have certainly changed about a lot of things, our language has changed, and our whole approach to the kind of quick fix solution to everything in life has probably changed, too. We're all trying to walk the walk, the Christian life. The best we know how, as passionately as we know how, with as much integrity as we know how."

As the title suggests, Delirious is in process; a band with a past, and a vision for the future. In the meantime, they're on a journey, and Mezzamorphis describes the place they're at on the way to what they will some day be. "We haven't made our definitive album," states Stu, "at least not yet. We're still pushing, we haven't finished yet. Which is another reason for the album title, the whole "Mezzanine Floor" thing; were not quite there yet. We're in the whole process of being changed so it's about the effect that it has on us, our music and our relationships."

Martin agrees, the progression visible in Mezzamorphis is a good thing. "We're very excited about this record, and we can't wait for our fans to hear it. Anyone who's really into music, we think will like it. We've reached the stage, where we've had to face the reality that we can't please everyone. We take each step as it comes. We're going to see what happens, and try to be obedient. We don't have an axe to grind, we're just going to do what we've always done."

By Brian Quincy Newcomb
Freelance music writer, contributing to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
BMG's Sound & Spirit, CCM and 7 Ball/Release

Stuart Garrard and Martin Smith are two of the primary songwriters at the heart of the English band, Delirious. In the last two years, Sparrow Records has delivered music that goes all the way back to its inception in 1992 as a worship band for monthly youth events in Littlehampton, on England’s southern coast. In ’97, America heard Cutting Edge, named for these very events, a two-disc collection of atmospheric praise, calling its youthful listeners to a commitment to faith in the Creator God, made known in Jesus, “The King of Love.” Then last year, we heard King of Fools, a coming of age album, where Delirious stretched out, embracing a bigger, bolder rock sound. Now, over a year in the making, comes Mezzamorphis, which they describe as a transitional album. Stu and Martin describe their songs:

HEAVEN

Stu: "The inspiration came when we were in Northern Ireland, travelling down the Falls Road, which has seen a lot of the violence of the last twenty years. We were discussing how that was a place where it felt like the devil had been, which became the first line of the song. That’s the reason that song has such an aggressive sound; it had to conjure up the rich emotion. It holds the ugliness and the violence in tension with the beauty and hope that heaven is our home." Martin: "This one related to another song, "Mezzanine Floor." Our life, if we’re wholly honest, is really the mezzanine floor, we’re never completely satisfied while we’re in this skin. There are tensions, hopes and dreams, joy and pain. We have to come to realize that we come form the dust, yet we believe one day we’ll meet Jesus. In the meantime, we’re caught between two worlds. Heaven is my home."

BLESS

Stu: We’d been waiting for this album, but everything was medium tempo. I asked Martin if he had any lyrics, I took them home for the weekend and "Bless" came out. It’s a statement, that we’re not backing down. We know exactly where we want to go, we want to take our music to the world and have it recognized as being as good as anything that’s out there. But we’re not going to compromise or back away from our integrity as Christians." Martin: "This is a little bit of a statement to the cynical end of the mainstream music business. It’s saying here we are, we’re not going to go away, and you’re not going to knock us down. We’re trying to reflect God in all that we’re doing, how God is in all the parts of our lives. And, I suppose it’s a statement about how destitute the whole music scene is really, how shallow it all is. I suppose we’re trying to be a part of that, and be a positive influence too."

SEE THE STAR

Stu: "At a meeting at out church a woman sang a prophetic song about ‘the star breaking through the sky upon the people of promise.’ Everyone in this life is on this journey; we’re all traveling down this road together, but it’s not always easy. There are ups and downs in life, but we need to keep our eyes on the road ahead. It’s a ‘run the race, get the prize, don’t give up’ message for the modern-day.

MEZZANINE FLOOR

Stu: "The mezzanine isn’t the ground floor or the second floor, it’s that floor in between. We feel that we’re at a point where we’ve left where we were, but we’re not yet where we believe we’re going to end up. So, we’re on the way, in the middle, on the mezzanine floor." Martin: "This is definitely the theme tune for the whole album. It sums up where we are. We can’t ever go back to what we were doing, and we’re not where we want to be yet, which is to have a larger platform, and lots more folk from outside the church coming to the gigs. So we’re caught in this middle place at the moment. The whole point with Mezzamorphis, we want to reflect that whole vibe that we’re changing, that we’re moving on. We’re not walking out on what we have accomplished or our roots at all, we’re just moving on. It’s a natural part of life."

BEAUTIFUL SUN

Stu: "We try to craft our songs with real poetic integrity, so they communicate well to people outside the church as much as people inside. While it’s obvious what the song is about, it’s not confrontational. It’s about light, literally in the beginning it’s about the physical sun, but by the end it’s about Jesus. Everybody needs the light, whether it’s plant growth, or just daylight to see what’s going on, everybody needs the light of the world."

METAMORPHIS

Stu: "The song begins with a direct reference to Communion, and has the prodigal saying, ‘I’ve been away for a while, but I’m coming back.’ The song is about the fact that out in the world, although everybody wants to be their own selves, we’re pulled this way and that. Everyone you meet wants you to be something or another. The song asks God to help us to be our own true selves, as God sees us, not the way folk pressure us to be what they want us to be."

GRAVITY

Stu: "Again, it’s a song about the being in the middle of opposing influences. You’d think we would learn from history, and not continue to repeat our mistakes, but often in the heat of the moment we do. Gravity represents the natural forces that pull us one way, yet Heaven is pulling us at the same time to be good, and pure, and holy. Often people assume that because we’re doing what we are that we have some kind of secret to great spirituality, but we’re just like everybody else. It’s quite a happy pop song, but it deals with the realities that can be quite hard."

FOLLOW

Martin: "This is a good statement for us to make at this point in time. It’s definitely not like the U2 song, "I Will Follow," which is quite triumphalistic. It’s quite more melancholic. It says sometimes I struggle, but still, I’m going to follow you, God. I’m really pleased with the words on this one."

BLINDFOLD

Martin: "This is quite a dark moment on the record in some respects. It’s a response to when one of the guy’s in the band, his wife had a miscarriage the year before. It came out of her going through the whole experience, feeling blindfolded, and asking where do you go, where do you turn in a situation like that? I wanted to write something that didn’t have a happy ending but in the end it flows into the ‘glory’ section. It’s saying that sometimes it’s the only thing we can sing, even if we don’t understand or feel like it at the moment.

LOVE FALLS DOWN

Martin: "This one’s got a few ‘Cutting Edge’ inflections from the old days. It’s really about how God fills up the earth with singing. We have a whole generation who are learning how to sing God’s praises. The title says it; we’ve felt God’s love falling down on us, and on our community. It’s a response to God."

KISS YOUR FEET

Martin: "It’s a personal statement. God has blessed us so much in what we’re doing, we’ve had a lot of favor and received a lot of accolades. This is my statement that that really doesn’t mean anything compared to knowing God personally. It’s really an old fashioned song."

JESUS' BLOOD

Martin: "This is probably the most overt song on the record. It’s a gospel song with a modern recording, really. It’s a powerful statement, it reminds me of a old-fashioned pentecostal hymn.