It is the first new studio album since the acclaimed 2005 release, Mission Bell, Delirious?'s Kingdom of Comfort questions everything, from cancer to consumerism, "five star" dreams to slums and poverty. It is an album that calls for sacrifice, social justice and love.
Recent tours have taken Delirious? to some of the poorest countries on earth where they've faced encounters with life that made poverty personal and forced hard questions to be asked by each member of the band. The visits have sparked a newfound commitment to social justice and compassionate ministry as an outworking of their being drawn ever closer to the Kingdom of God, as opposed to the kingdom of comfort.
Taking their renewed faith, thoughts and questions about these journeys into the studio, the band emerged with an album full of songs that encompass every aspect of highs and lows they faced in their travels.
"We just can't carry on the same way in any sphere of our lives," says Delirious? frontman, Martin Smith. "Everywhere you go there's a shift happening. People are evaluating what's truly important in life, and I think our new album reflects that urgency."
"Seeing children looking for scraps on the rubbish dump they call homes in Cambodia and the education and feeding projects in the slums of Mumbai [India] really had an impact on us," adds lead guitarist Stu G. "It wasn't possible to simply proceed with business as usual. We had to ask ourselves, 'What am I building? A kingdom of comfort? Or a kingdom of heaven?'"
With the album's first radio single, "We Give you praise", Martin confirms that we are to walk on the road of life and not give up. "We blame the devil for a lot of our troubles, but most of my trouble comes from me, my flesh, the old man. We have been saved from ourselves. That's the most amazing thing. Left to my own devices I would perish."
Literature also played a big part in the writing of Kingdom of Comfort, inspiring the songs and the mission. In fact, not only did authors inspire the new album, some have also joined the band in the mission writing stories to encourage charity in conjunction with the new album.
