Delirious?
Glo
Sparrow Records
2000

In the past several years worship music in the U.S. has been redefined by one band: Delirious?. Songs like 'I Could Sing of Your Love Forever' have become a staple of worship services and rock and roll has been accepted with open arms as a viable way to praise God. While other bands have tried worship in the past (Petra), and some bands continue to try worship (Sonicflood), no band has brought such a renewed vigor to worshipping God.

Their Cutting Edge two-disc set from several years ago started it all, and that was just a compilation of years of work they'd been doing in England. Since then they've had two modern rock releases with impressive results. Now they've returned to worship with Glo and proven they're still on the cutting edge.

Which brings up an interesting question of marketing and branding--what defines worship? Choirs and the name Jesus? It seems an odd paradox that we've created a genre called worship. But anyway...

Glo is an amazingly creative album. It features 11 songs and 15 tracks--which probably makes you scratch your head. The four extra tracks are called 'Glo in the Dark,' and are spontaneous continuations of the songs. It's like the concert version that you expect to end but instead it keeps on going. There's two ways of viewing these spontaneous tracks: 1) It's a cheap marketing ploy to give radio stations playable songs and fans extended cuts, or 2) It's a creative way to let you hear the band experiment and still enjoy the original song on its own. I'll let you decide.

Either way this is a CD full of creative, worshipful, modern rock gems. 'God You Are My God' starts the album off with a quiet chant that rises to a stirring chorus. 'God's Romance' deserves best-of-disc rewards with its fun beat that you can't help but move to. 'Everything' features a subtle U2-esque guitar (not to mention the line "It's a beautiful day...") and some keyboard accents that work well.

These guys are no strangers to making good music and Glo is another fine example. It'll be interesting to see how many of these songs become praise and worship classics across the U.S. It'll be even more interesting to see how praise and worship teams across the U.S. figure out how to handle the modern rock distortion, instrumentation, and licks that make this CD such a fun listen. (Kevin H.)